The Misadventures of Markus X: Mileena
by Fusion-Corsair
Summary: When a small-town college dropout takes a holiday from work to New York, he's caught straight in the battle for Earthrealm. To save himself, he must follow and play along with a woman in need of a friend. Mileena/OC, occurs during the MK3 portion of MK2011. Finally complete! Rated T for bloody and moderately sexual reasons.
1. Invasion!

_Not my first fanfic, but my first fully published one on here. Will interlock with a story I intend to publish later on here. This story occurs during Shao Kahn's invasion into Earthrealm during MK3/End of MK9. Please R&R if you can! I love feedback after all...  
_

**MARKUS X'S POV**

"Wow," I said to myself, "and I thought things couldn't get any worse..."

I had taken a trip to New York City in order to relieve the stress from some of the work I'd been doing. Having purchased myself a specialty suit of bulletproof armor from a notable Canadian inventor, I had been fitting it with some simple cybernetic augments so the suit wouldn't be as heavy. Despite my intentions of this being a holiday from work, I had brought the freshly-painted armor with me in case of any trouble, and considering what I was seeing right now, that was a good idea.

As I was about to put my helmet on, I saw several US Army soldiers running away from something. Chuckling at their apparent misfortune, I stopped laughing after seeing what they were running from: a massive, fifty to sixty foot tall monster. Its footsteps were heavy enough to make the ground underneath my feet rumble as I watched it walk past, my jaw wide open. Staring through the damaged glass window as the beast turned the corner to go down another street, I put on my helmet, cocked my pistols, and readied the suit's other weapons.

"Pressurized propane flamethrower? Check. Wrist blade? Check. Magnetically holstered pistols? Check. Ability to fight well in hand-to-hand..." I paused, doing a quick pep-up dance that looked like a clunky version of the Gangnam Style dance, "...not so much."

Grabbing a Beretta 92 with extended magazine holstered to my right hip, I ran across the street, finding myself on a bridge as a burning car flew by ten feet away, smashing through the front of a first-story flower shop. What I saw slightly befuddled me.

A large, four-armed, tiger-like creature was taking a very badly burned person with him through a portal. Watching stood a woman clothed in a pinkish-purple outfit I could only describe as some sort of bizarre swimsuit from the latest Miami fashion show. Knowing that I had to do something to prevent this beast from taking a gravely injured man to his death, I ran out towards the pair of unusual beings, firing a couple of rounds into the air.

"Yo, Cat-man-du! Looking for a new playmate? Well here he is!"

The woman, who I now realized was accompanying this creature, turned and looked at me with sharp reptilian eyes before speaking to her partner.

"Take the former Black Dragon back to Shang Tsung. I will deal with this Earthrealmer myself!"

The cat-beast nodded to her before passing through the portal with the dying man in his arms as the woman stepped towards me, brandishing a pair of sharp dagger-like weapons with blade guards as she twirled around, laughing.

"Let us dance!"

I smiled at her, though she couldn't see it under my helmet. "Sure thing, sweetheart."

The woman dashed towards me, weapons pointed point-first at me. I aimed my gun and fired a round at her forehead, but she disappeared in a glowing purple aura before reappearing in front of and above me as she kicked my head. I was glad that this suit provided some protection, otherwise that kick would've hurt like several hundred needles sticking into my face. As she landed, I moved forward with a shoulder block, knocking her down to the ground with myself on top of her. As she attempted to stab me with her weapons, I merely pounded on her wrist with my armored fist, forcing her to let go of them before I tossed them away. Staring into her searingly barbed yellow eyes, I smiled behind my helmet, intending to get an answer.

"Well," I began, "it seems I'm on top of this fight at the moment. How about we play a quick game of twenty questions?"

She appeared to give a smile from underneath her mask. "A game? I love games! Here is one you probably have not heard of: LUNCHTIME!"

Pulling a hand to her mask, she ripped it off, revealing a massive pair of razor-sharp chompers that any dentist would pay a fortune to have resting on their desk. With surprising force for a woman, she pushed me off of her before rushing at me, leaping onto me, and trying to bite through the fabric covering my right shoulder. I yelled in pain as some of the longer teeth she had penetrated the basic kevlar, stabbing my shoulder. _"Great,"_ I thought, _"Now I'll have to get tetanus shots after I finish this fight."_

The woman eventually got off of me as I stood there, some of my shoulder fabric turning red from the blood. She spoke in a seductively sympathetic voice to me before giggling. "Did it hurt?"

I raised my right arm, ignorant of the burning sensation in my shoulder as the morphine styrette built into the suit began its job of relieving the pain. Firing another round at her, I immediately pointed my pistol at where she had teleported to last time, only to get hit from behind. The blow knocked me on top of the gun I had been holding, and a round went through it, bouncing off of my helmet and leaving a noticeable scar. Getting back up, I turned around and looked at her, now re-veiled after munching on me.

Giving me a swift kick to the chest, she pinned me down to the ground with her heel, her foot and the weight of my armor preventing me from getting up. Looking down at me, she purred with an inquisitive question I didn't really understand.

"What do you know of Raiden and the Earthrealm warriors? Where are they?"

Unsure of what she was talking about, I responded as bluntly as I possibly could. "Lady, I don't have a clue what you're going on about. I've never heard of a guy named Raiden, or of these 'Earthrealm warriors.' I'm just a guy who decided to try and help someone in need, only to get attacked and nearly killed by a smoking hot babe. This is NOT what I was looking forward to on vacation!"

The woman paused, staring at me before crouching down and again ripping off her mask, revealing her massive maw and needle-like teeth. "Am I still pretty now?"

In my head, an orchestra was playing the theme from 'Jaws' so loud I could barely concentrate. However, I could still put up an emotionless facade and give her an answer.

"Personally, I think your face is so-so."

She raised an eyebrow before kicking my guns off the bridge and letting me up. "What do you mean by 'so-so?'"

I felt comfortable enough to ease this into a conversation. "Well, if you're thinking I'm saying you're so-so because of the big teeth, you'd be wrong. It's more the nose." I raised an armored finger and pointed at her nose. "It's just a bit too angular to fit with your body and teeth. You're not ugly or anything like that. It just doesn't want to fit together that well." Pausing a brief moment as I let my words sink in, I decided to add one last comment in. "But then again, with a toned and curvy body like yours, I could easily forget about the nose."

If I didn't know better, I'd day I saw a bit of red form on her cheeks. "You... you are the first person from Earthrealm to not call me ugly."

I froze before raising a finger. "I know!" Reaching up to my head, I took my helmet off, revealing my own face that was not exactly blemish-free itself. Small scars revealed themselves on my forehead and right cheek, scars from troubles in my past. It's a good thing I'd made friends with Parsek back in the day, otherwise there would've been even more of them. Eying her over with my blue eyes, almost entirely turned steel grey from wear and tear, I grinned. "Ugly? No. You're definitely an A+ in my book."

She and I stared at each other for what felt like hours before she bent over and picked up her mask, motioning to me with her hand. "Follow me if you want to survive this conflict."

Thinking to myself, I nodded and began to walk towards her when she motioned to me to put on my helmet. "You are to follow my lead. Do so, or I will not be able to guarantee your safety."

Doing as she said, I put my helmet on. "Just call me Trojan for now."

Her eyes twinkled. "And just call me mistress, cyborg."

Reaching a hand up to the side of my helmet, I activated the voice changer. "Yes, mistress."


	2. I'm Not a Cyborg

**MARKUS X'S POV**

I stepped through the portal with the woman, who had told me while we were alone that her name was Mileena. I had, along with some cyborgs and apparent ugly male copies of Mileena, picked up the corpse of a centaur and walked through a portal with it.

This portal led me back to an Oriental-style palace's throne room. On the throne was an extremely large and muscular man wearing a helmet and skull mask. Next to him were several figures: a woman with grey hair and white eyes, a clearly Asian male wearing regal clothing, a red-colored cyborg, and a white-skinned, gothic male with red Asian tattoos running all across his body. Near a wall, evidently watching the scene, were a man with half his face replaced by cybernetics, and a heavily burned man with hook-blades and a creepy mask. Perhaps he was the man I had seen earlier?

I stopped with the rest of the "pallbearers" at the man on the throne looked at us. "What is this?"

Mileena responded for us. "Raiden has killed Motaro."

"Raiden? His interference threatens to jeopardize my invasion!"

The grey-haired woman looked at him. "It is no great matter. I will go to Earthrealm to finish Motaro's work."

"Yes..." the man on the throne stood up and looked the woman over before raising a hand. "Shang Tsung!"

The Asian man stepped forward. "Yes, Emperor."

"The Empress requires something of you."

Shang Tsung stepped towards him before a green glow came from the Emperor's hands, draining what appeared to be the very life out of him. Taking his other hand and holding it out, the Emperor energized the Empress with whatever essence Shang Tsung had.

As he did so, the burned man with the creepy mask came forward. Mileena stepped forward to stop him, as did a black wraith-like being. I watched as the two fought him before he sped forward at high speed, sliding into Mileena and breaking her knees before taking his swords, impaling them point-first into her back, and throwing her away into a wall. Ignoring the fight going on between the two remaining kombatants, I rushed over to my "mistress," helping her up as I put her arm over my shoulder. The fight between the other two was over soon enough, and as the cyborgs and other creatures surrounded the burned man, the Emperor ordered the white-skinned man, Quan Chi, to seal the portal. While he did, it was too late, the man having run at high speed through it back to Earthrealm.

I stood for a moment before I was pushed away by Mileena, her and the wraith looking at the Emperor. I noticed his eyes were similar to her own, suggesting a family relationship.

"Mileena! Noob Saibot! How is it that a damaged, crispy, sorcery-repaired Earthrealmer can defeat two of my most powerful assassins?" He sounded angry, like he was this way all of the time.

Another voice broke in, an Australian one, coming from the man with half a cybernetic face. "I guess Shang Tsung's sorcery fixed him up a bit too much, eh, Shao Kahn?"

The Emperor, Shao Kahn, turned and looked at him before slamming his hammer down, the shockwave sending the cyborg Aussie into the wall. "If I wish to hear your opinions, Kano, I will ask for them!"

Taking advantage of Kahn ignoring Mileena, I again helped her up. "Which way to your room?"

She motioned down a hallway. "Down there. My room is at the end of the hallway to the right."

I walked in the direction she had pointed me towards, not noticing that the red cyborg was following me. Before I knew what had happened, he was in front of me, his hand out.

"You will come with me. All Lin Kuei units are to report to the throne room for new orders."

I looked at him and was about to respond, but Mileena did it for me. "Your 'unit' is merely helping me reach my bedroom. When it gets me there, it will then return to you. Correct, Trojan?"

I prayed that my voice changer was still working. "Yes, mistress."

The sharp-toothed woman smiled, her grin visible even underneath her mask. "How very polite! If only all of your units were this way, Sektor..."

Sektor acted as though he had not heard a word Mileena had said. "I will not disobey the Grandmaster." He placed a hand on my shoulder in order to indicate he wanted me to follow him. "Come with me. Now."

Letting Mileena get her arm off from around my shoulder, I pushed Sektor's hand off of my shoulder with my left hand and punched him in the chest with my right. He quickly got back up and prepared to fight. "Your programming has been corrupted. You will now be 'decommissioned.'"

I said nothing as I released the wrist blade in my left glove, punching the red cyborg with it. He quickly responded with a high kick to my shoulder, knocking me back. Rolling with the hit, I stood up and avoided a missile headed straight towards me. Dashing forward, I kneed Sektor in the chest, knocking him to the ground as I jumped on top of his head. Eying some wires sticking out of his helmet, I tugged on them as hard as the suit and I could pull. Evidently, it did something to the Lin Kuei cyborg, as he stopped resisting and simply fell flat to the ground. For an extra measure of protection, I let loose my propane flamethrower in the right glove, charring Sektor's paint and hopefully stopping him from moving long enough that he would not be able to get up any time soon.

Stepping back over to Mileena, I took my helmet off, picked her up in my arms, and grabbed my helmet with my right foot, bouncing it off a wall and into Mileena's hands. "Alrightly, now let's get you to your room..."


	3. GET OVER HERE!

**MARKUS X'S POV**

Mileena's room(though it was more of a suite) was everything I expected a room in an Oriental palace would be: massive, with plenty of gold and silver furnishings in the shape of dragons, warriors, monsters, and who knows what else. Against the wall was a king-sized bed with canopy, flanked by large nightstands that had a variety of mysterious artifacts on them. To the left of the bed was a dresser that I assumed had her clothes in it, while to the right a short hallway led to a spacious bathroom with a large, warm tub.

She motioned me towards the bathroom as I carried her over to it. Reaching from my arms to grab a small jeweled bottle, she looked at me. "You can let me down now..."

Doing so, I gently lowered her into the stone bathtub, large enough to be a jacuzzi except for the fact that it had no jets. Turning the water on, I watched as it filled the tub up and covered Mileena's battered body with warm water. Turning away from her, intending to give my "mistress" some privacy, I was surprised when I heard her call me.

"Trojan," she purred, "where are you going?"

I turned back, noticing that she was now hidden underneath a cloud of soapy bubbles. Grinning at what appeared to be her attempt to be seductive, I responded with a smile. "Thought I'd be a gentleman and give you some privacy."

She gave me a smile, her eyes twinkling with desiring intent. She wasn't even wearing her mask and outfit anymore - just a cloud of bubbles. "Now now, no need to get ultra-modest around me. Besides, I need someone to help me bathe. With all those painful broken bones and those aching, tired muscles, I can barely move..."

With a falsely emotionless face, I turned to her and bowed overdramatically. "As you command, my mistress."

Stepping towards the tub, I was inches away from grabbing a real sponge to help clean Mileena off with when I heard a very loud knock on the door. With a cross look, I put the sponge on the rim of the tub and put on my helmet. Stepping over to the door of Mileena's bedroom, I opened it, witnessing a very interesting sight.

Outside the door were two people, neither of whom I had seen earlier in the throne room. The first looked like another one of the ugly male copies of Mileena, but was wearing armor and had large blades sticking out from his arms. I assumed he was a leader of some sort. The second was very clearly a warrior, but he had white eyes and yellowed armor that looked organic, almost like the carapace of a large insect. A pair of swords were slung behind his back, and wrapped around his right arm was a chain tipped with the sharp blade of a knife.

Remembering that in everyone's eyes I was a mere cyborg, I acted as such. "What do you two require of mistress Mileena? She is busy bathing."

The one with bladed arms spoke first. I could barely stand to look at his face, which, unlike Mileena's, made the massive and pointy teeth look quite terrifying. "We are not here to talk with Mileena."

"In that case, what are you here for?"

The yellow warrior responded this time, with a demonic sounding voice. "You. Now COME HERE!"

The ninja threw his knife on a chain at me, a strike which slightly dug into my armor's chestplate. Yanking on it, I pulled the ninja over to me, only for him to disappear in a blaze of flame as the blade-armed male dashed forward, attempting to slash at me with his eerily organic weaponry. Pulling out the wrist blade, I did a forward roll and lept up, punching the blade through the beastly man's chest before giving him an uppercut, crotch-chopping him a couple times as he wallowed on the floor in agonizing pain. I follishly didn't able to notice the yellow ninja get behind me, and only acknowledged his presence after his chain was wrapped around my neck. I struggled, attempting to free myself from the unusual weapon, but could only curse myself for having not added any neck protection to the armor as I faded off into unconsciousness.

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

I slowly sank back into the warm water of the tub as Trojan left to check the door. Why did I always have to be interrupted at big moments like this? No matter... I knew he would come back. It was plastered all over his face.

Except he never did. I waited for well over half an hour before I cleaned myself up, put on my formal outfit with veil, tied my hair into a wet ponytail, and left my room, sais in hand.

Rounding the corner, I immediately spotted Scorpion. As one of the people who got around the palace, he would most likely know where Trojan had gone off to.

Skipping to him, I attempted to act as cheerfully flirty as I could without him trying to throw his kunai at me. "Heya, Scorpy!"

He turned to me, an emotionless look on his face. "If this is about me rejecting the teddy bear you attempted to give me, save your breath. I hate teddies, and will not be so kind to your precious bear next time..."

I smiled at him. Trying to give him a teddy bear was hard, but I knew I would eventually do it. Thus, I ignored him. "Actually, I was wondering where Trojan wandered off to. He was supposed to help me bathe, what with my fight against the Earthrealmer and all."

Scorpy raised an eyebrow. "The false Lin Kuei cyborg? Myself and Baraka were called to take him to Shao Kahn. I assume that by now your father has begun his interrogation, or perhaps he has chained the impostor in the dungeons. Either way, he has been dealt with."

I audibly gasped. Despite us not knowing each other for that long, the fact that Trojan was the first Earthrealmer to call me attractive without my mask gave me more than enough of a reason to save him from my father's clutches.

Walking past Scorpy, I immediately headed to the throne room. Asking Reptile where my father had taken the Earthrealmer, I was told that he had taken Trojan to the Flesh Pits, in order to give him a "thorough examination," as the Saurian had put it. Preparing my sais, I headed towards my birthplace, hopefully to save my playmate before it was too late.


	4. Saving My New Playmate

**MARKUS X'S POV**

I awoke to the sound of dripping blood and the smell of rotting flesh. Attempting to remove my helmet, I found that my arms and legs were restrained to a bloody table by some sort of glowing green energy. Fortunately though, none of the blood was mine, though I had the feeling some would be joining it soon enough.

Looking around in my very limited field of vision, I spotted a great many corpses and abominations that obviously were failures of whoever this place belonged to. There were tanks carrying still-living creatures along with a table that had a bloody, fleshless body upon it.

it was then that I heard the voice of someone who gave me shivers running down my spine: the Emperor, Shao Kahn. The skull-adorned man was coming closer to me, a very large warhammer in his hands.

"So... One of Raiden's pathetic champions succeeded in making their way to Outworld in order that they may spy on me. A foolish waste of my time!"

Shao Kahn swung the hammer down onto my chestplate. While the armor held, I heard a visible crack from one of my ribs as they gave way from the shock.

"But no matter... You will tell me all that you know."

Immediately realizing that there was no way I would be exiting here alive, I decided to be forthcoming. I would tell him all I knew.

"Alright then... Let me tell you everything that happened to me from the moment I ran into Mileena until now, since that's how long I've been here."

I saw him frown, evidently displeased that she had allowed an Earthrealmer to slip in. "Anyways... So Mileena, who I'm going to guess is your daughter judging from the similar eyes, beat me down, but oddly enough decided to spare me and take me to... What do you call it, Outworld? While there, I helped bring Motaro's body in and saw you energize the Empress with Shang Tsung's essence. After Mileena and Noob Saibot got beaten by that burned Earthrealm guy and he escaped, I helped her get up and go to her room."

"I was rudely interrupted, however, by Sektor, the red cyborg. Evidently the body armor I wear is similar enough to how the cyborgs look that he thought I was one of them. When I refused to come with him, he tried to 'decommission' me. As you can guess, I beat him down and made him a little toasty. After helping Mileena get in the bath, I was just going to scrub her down with a sponge when some blade-armed freakshow and a yellow ninja knocked at her door. I'm guessing you sent them... So they beat me down and here I am."

Shao Kahn merely looked at me as he walked around, then without warning pounded his hammer down again on my chest. I felt yet another rib crack as the armor itself showed a large dent where the Emperor had hit it.

"Do you think I am foolish? You know more than you have told me, not to mention your clear and blatant lies. Tell me all that you know before I choose to pound your head off of your body and give it to Mileena to play with!"

I again tried to take off my helmet, only for Kahn himself to violently rip it off of my head. "You have ten seconds to tell be what you know, otherwise you will be decapitated."

I writhed and struggled against my bonds, trying to get free. "Kahn! Listen! I don't know anything more about this place then what I just told you! Don't pathetically waste my life when I have so many uses! Dish scrubber, chef, street sweeper..."

He interrupted me, raising his hammer up. "Your time is up. Give my regards to Quan Chi when you meet him in the Netherrealm!"

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

I had gotten to the Flesh Pits just in time! My father had his hammer primed, ready to in one swift blow tear Trojan's head off of his body. Leaping forward with all my might, I jumped into my father, knocking him down before he could turn my playmate's head into an extra-large bowling ball for Noob Saibot to use.

"Father, please don't do this!"

My father, my emperor, stood up and stared at me, frustration and hatred burning in his eyes. "What is it, Mileena? What reason could you possibly give me to spare this pathetic Earthrealmer?"

I watched, thinking of a reason as he raised his hammer once again. I blurted said reason out while the hammer was inches away from Trojan's face.

"He is mine!"

Both my father and Trojan looked at me, speaking simultaneously. "What?"

I reiterated, since neither of them evidently understood my logic. "Trojan belongs to me. I found him, I defeated him in Mortal Kombat, and I brought him to Outworld. He is mine, my property."

I slowly slinked towards the two of them until I was right next to Trojan, looking over him with my piercing yellow eyes. "Besides," I paused, breathing in, "he is the only Earthrealmer to see me without my mask and not call me ugly."

My father looked at me with a look of shock on his face before turning to Trojan. "Is this true?"

He looked back at my father. "I know this is going to shock you, but yes. She's not ugly without the mask. Besides, anyone who focuses solely on her face and ignores the rest of her deserves to have their brain beaten to a fine mush."

My father rested his hand firmly underneath his chin, culling over what he was going to do. I knew, though, that he had made his mind up when the bonds restraining Trojan disappeared, causing my playmate to fall limply to the floor. I quickly rushed over to him and helped him up, my father watching the entire time.

"Very well... He is yours, Mileena. Just keep him out of my way during this invasion. Understood?"

I nodded and bowed, placing Trojan's arm over my shoulder and helping him out of the Flesh Pits, reaching down and grabbing his fallen helmet before mounting it back on his head as we walked away.

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

I... was very confused at the moment. Mileena actually cared about me enough to save me from her father. I really didn't care why she did it... I was just glad I was still alive. Turning to look at her, I tilted my helmeted head to the side, leaning it on her shoulder as we returned to her room. I remember her giving me some medicine, which made me a bit tired. Stumbling towards her bed, I passed out, unable to move anymore.

When I woke up, I felt... lighter. Looking down, I saw that I was comfortably arranged in Mileena's bed. Smiling, I yawned, stretching my arms out, but as I did so I felt something to my right. Turning to look, I saw it was Mileena.

Naked.

Without a mask.

Staring directly at me only a few inches away.

Yeah, you can obviously guess what happened next. I screamed and jumped up from the bed so high that I hit my head on the stone ceiling and fell back down. Rubbing my head as I stood up and looked at myself, I noticed that I had no clothes on either.

And then it hit me.

"MILEENA!"

I panicked, hoping she had not taken advantage of me in my sleep. "You didn't do what I think you did, did you?"

She looked at me with as bland a look as someone with a perpetual grin on their face could. "If you are thinking that I had sex with you while you were sleeping, the answer is no. If instead you thought that I helped you out of your armor, gave you some Shokan medicine to help heal your ribs, then tucked you into bed, however, you would be right. I do NOT take advantage of people who are in my servitude."

Those words calmed me down quite a bit, but not enough. I wondered where my clothes were. "So... Where's my armor?"

"On top of my dresser, but for now, you have no need for it. Go grab yourself one of the warriors' kimonos from my closet and meet me in the throne room."

I questioned her, asking what she wanted me to do.

"Oh, not much. Just have a gift to give to a friend of mine..."


	5. I Still Hate Teddies!

**MARKUS X'S POV**

I stepped down the stairs leading to the subway. Wearing my kimono and some undergarments, I felt extremely vulnerable to the outside world without my armor on. I suppose I shouldn't have been paranoid, but after all that's happened recently, I didn't exactly know what would happen next.

As Mileena and I reached the platform, I spotted Scorpion. The yellow ninja was unmistakably visible so far as I was concerned. My "mistress" had stated that she wanted to give him a gift. I had hoped said gift would be a savage beatdown for what he'd done to me, but unfortunately, my thoughts were too good to be true. Instead of something more appropriate, like a sword or brass knuckles, she held a teddy bear.

Yes, you heard me correctly. Mileena was trying to give Scorpion a teddy bear. What's even weirder is that she made this bear herself.

Yeah, not strange at all to find a handmade teddy bear in the hands of a scantily-clad, murderous woman with big teeth. Not strange at all..

With nothing better to do, I leaned back against a concrete pillar and watched the madness unfold, messing around with the wrist-mounted weapons that Sektor and his cohort Cyrax had given to me as reparation for the earlier unprovoked attack.

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

Today was a very big day for me, one of the main reasons I had brought Trojan along. I was finally going to give Scorpion my updated teddy bear! Sure he gave me a savage beating and threatened to do worse to me should I attempt to give it to him again, but I knew that eventually he's\d relent and accept it.

Sultrily stepping over to Scorpion, I made visible the teddy bear held in my hand.

Scorpy, though, was the one who started our little conversation. "You again... I do NOT want that teddy!"

I looked at him with pleading eyes. "Take it!" Throwing the teddy towards him, I was shocked when he kicked it back into my hands.

"I STILL hate teddies!"

A bit hurt by his rejection, I decided to liven things up before the inevitable fight. "Teddy just wanted to play!"

Rolling towards him, I jumped up, hitting him with a punch in the face, followed by a quick teleport kick. When I landed, however, he speared me, shouting "GET OVER HERE!" as he did so. Pulling me close to him, he then proceeded to uppercut me, sending me back.

"I worked so hard on it! You must accept it!" Wiping some blood from the edge of my mouth, I threw my sais at him before jumping on him, biting down on his shoulder and stabbing him in the chest with one of the sais already impaled in him. "It's really soft and fluffy!" I brushed the teddy bear against his bare arm to get across how soft my creation really was. This, however, was a mistake.

In my moment of weakness, I left myself vulnerable to attack, something Scorpy used to his advantage as he headbutted me, knocking me to the ground before crushing my ribs with a strong, painful stomp.

Wrenching the teddy from my weakened grasp, he shook it violently, yelling with frustration at it before figuring out what to do with it. a gleam suddenly came to his eye as he stepped towards the tracks. "Goodbye, Teddy! Playtime is OVER!"

I could do nothing but watch as Scorpion took my precious teddy bear and rubbed its head against the side of the oncoming subway car before throwing it across the room. I could have sworn that I heard the teddy cry out as he threw it into the path of an oncoming train, which smashed it and took it away.

Looking up at Scorpion, who held his sword out, I found something strange happening as a tear rolled down my cheek. I would never again see that teddy...

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

I watched what had just happened in horror. Not only was I worried about what had happened to Mileena, but I also wanted to keep her teddy bear intact. It disgusted me to see Scorpion throw Mileena's handmade teddy into the oncoming subway and not even show a single shard of pity for how badly he'd broken her heart.

Inside me, a feeling rose up that I never expected: anger. I was furious with Scorpion for his actions, wanting vengeance not only for myself, but Mileena as well. As such, I lept forward and did quite possibly the stupidest thing I could've done.

I jumped on him.

I jumped on Scorpion with surprising speed and began to attack him. Activating the saw in my left gauntlet, I slashed at him several times before toasting him with my flamethrower. He was surprisingly unprepared for what I was doing, and as such was easy rendered helpless by me.

I stood over him, crushing down with my foot on his chest like he had tone to Mileena. "HOW DARE YOU!"

He attempted to take his blade on a chain and stab me with it at close range, but I instead grabbed it, wrapped it around his neck, and held it tight. "HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF RESPECT FOR THIS WOMAN'S HARD WORK?"

Yanking on the chain wrapped around the yellow ninja's neck, I pulled him towards the rails. "If you have so little respect for the gifts of others, perhaps you will understand my having little respect for you."

Kicking Scorpion in the back, he landed on the rails, getting up with surprising speed. Without warning, he ripped his mask off, revealing a flaming skull for a head instead of a man's face. The Ghost Rider wannabe blew a bit of fire at me, which singed my kimono before the expected happened: He suffered the poor teddy bear's fate, being smashed by a subway train exactly like the bear had been. In my opinion, it was deserved, considering his high level of cowardice.

Stepping over to the bloody Mileena, I helped her up, her blood staining my kimono as she got to her feet. Noticing a tear in her eye, I brought the corner of my sleeve to her face, wiping it away, "It's okay, Mileena. Scorpion deserved what he got. For an honorable ninja, he sure had no clue how to treat a woman's gift with respect."

As she looked at me, peering into my steely eyes with her own, I felt we had a moment of mutual understanding. Realizing she was still shaken by that infernal ninja's actions, I did the second craziest thing I had done that evening.

I hugged her.

I did something that even most of the Emperor's other henchmen would tremble in fear at if they were asked to do it. I comfortingly embraced her, her minimalist outfit softly fitting within the fuzzy folds of my bloodied kimono as my arms wrapped lovingly yet firmly around her.

Then the strangest thing happened... She hugged me back.

I didn't expect the firm grip of Mileena's strong arms around my shoulders, her head leaning gently over my right one.

"Thank you... Teddy."

I smiled at her new nickname for me as the two of us stood up, still arm-in-arm as we left the bloodied subway station, heading back to Outworld. Surprisingly enough, even though I had made sure Scorpion wouldn't be coming back, I would run into him yet again very soon...


	6. Round 1: Fight!

**MARKUS X'S POV**

It was a long walk back to the portal that led to Outworld. I convinced Mileena to let me break off for a bit so I could break into a nearby gun store and grab myself a pair of new pistols.

Shattering the glass of the shop's window, I looked through the store's display before finding something quite unique. Bending down and melting the bulletproof glass with my flamethrower, I reached into the now open case and grabbed myself a pair of Glock 17s and - surprise, surprise - a pair of Beta C-Mags. With enough 9mm ammunition to last me for years, I stockpiled my finds into a large bag and hurried off to the end of the subway line, in order to find my real prize...

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

I waited for a lot longer than Trojan and I had originally agreed upon. When he finally did return, carrying a large bag full of supplies, I ripped my mask off and jumped on him, holding a sai mere inches away from his throat. "What took you so long? I was about to leave and find another playmate."

He smiled at me connivingly, almost as though he had something up the sleeves of his bloodied kimono that I knew nothing about. "I simply had to get myself an upgrade from my previous weapons you so kindly sank in the river, mistress."

Getting off of him, I watched as he pulled a pair of pistols out from the bag. What I did not expect were the massive ammo holders underneath and to the sides of the guns.

"Glock 17 handguns with Beta C-Mags. Highest capacity magazine in the gun world. This is military-grade tech right here."

Not knowing anything about most of the stuff he mentioned, I simply nodded as we returned to Outworld through the portal.

When we returned, a servant immediately ran up to us. Gasping with fear on his face, as I was unmasked, he spoke with a heavy quiver in his voice.

"M-m-m-mistress Mileena, your father wants to see you and your personal servant right away."

I looked at Trojan, and he did likewise. "Did my father mention why he wanted us?"

The young man looked ready to soil himself was he responded. "N-n-n-n-no... But he seemed very mad!"

Unable to keep his composure, the young man fell to his knees and curled up into the fetal position. Trojan immediately got onto his knees to check on the youth, who appeared to barely be a teenager. "It's okay... Calm down. Mileena's just a woman. A beautiful, scantily-clad woman who can bite my head off, but a woman nonetheless. She's not going to kill you just for delivering news. Right, Mileena?"

I nodded. This boy needed reassurance that he would not have his life pointlessly wasted, and fortunately, my reassurance was not wasted.

With Trojan's help, the scared boy slowly stood back up before bowing and returning to his duties. As he went to his next job, we quickly went on our way to my father's throne room.

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

Talk about nightmares... My stomach felt queasy as the guards opened the doors to Shao Kahn's throne room.

It was worse then I expected. Almost every important person was in the room: Cyrax and Sektor, Noob Saibot, Kano, the blade-armed freakshow named Baraka, a four-armed she-beast, along with two male counterparts, one of whom was the tiger-man I first had run into, a man in face-wraps with glowing green hands, the Empress, Mileena's friend Reptile, Quan Chi, a purple ninja, a female ninja dressed similarly to Mileena, but wearing red, Shao Kahn himself, and... Scorpion?

"Wait... How can Scorpion be here? Isn't he dead?"

It was Quan Chi who responded to my question. "Scorpion cannot truly be killed until his thirst for vengeance is fulfilled. Your attempt at assassinating him was rather futile."

Kahn stood up from his throne before staring at me with his villainous red eyes. "How dare you!"

He threw his enormous hammer at me, which I dodged easily enough. "Not only do you sneak into my domain and subvert my daughter to your whim, but you have the audacity to blatantly kill one of my personal assassins!"

The rabid warlord threw a green spear at me, which I yet again dodged. "You will die here, foolish Earthrealmer! Skarlet!"

The red-haired woman with minimal clothing on stabbed herself in the chest, her entire body converting itself into a pool of blood which slithered through the crowd until it was directly in front of me. Skarlet, as she was evidently called, managed to materialize in front of me, hissing at me as she did so.

"Your name is Skarlet and you're made of blood... I guess that makes you the only woman who enjoys her period."

The bloody female assassin ceased her aggressive actions, giving me a look of confusion. "Wait... So you're a woman, yet you have no idea what a period is?"

Skarlet seemed even more confused. "Okay..." I stepped forward, formulating a plan. "See, Skarlet, when the average human female's body is created, there are many little eggs inside a part of her called the ovaries. These eggs can become fertilized by the sperm of a male, but if they aren't, then the eggs die off, resulting in..." I quickly activated the buzzsaw in my glove and slashed through Skarlet's neck before shoving her body away. Holding her bloody head by several large locks of red hair, I finished my description. "...resulting in excessive bloody discharge from the vagina."

Turning and bowing to the crowd, I smiled. "Thank you! Thank you very much! You're a wonderful sophomore health class! Goodnight, everybody!"

As I finished my overdramatization of a high school health report, I felt a tap on the shoulder. Turning around, I was immediately slapped by Skarlet, whose head had regenerated. With an angry look in her eyes, she grabbed her former head from my clutches and walked away, evidently to tend to her wounds.

"Your defeat against Skarlet means nothing, Earthrealmer!" Shao Kahn bellowed as he pounded his fist on the armrest of his throne. "She has not even been fully trained yet!"

I rolled my eyes and looked at the Emperor. "She was so easily distracted by something she didn't understand. That's a critical flaw I suggest you fix."

Kahn grimaced as he looked at me. "Rain!"

The purple ninja stepped forward. "Yes, Emperor?"

"You wish for command of an army, do you not?"

"Indeed. Only so I may conquer realms in your name, of course..."

Kahn motioned to me. "Defeat this Earthrealmer in Mortal Kombat and I shall grant you command of my personal legion of soldiers."

I could easily see how to avert this fight. String-pulling seemed to be the key behind winning these contests. If this Purple Rain person wanted power, why not give him a better deal?

Before Rain even prepared to fight me, I gave him an offer I knew he could not refuse. "Rain, if you choose to forfeit this contest right now, and instead choose to face Shao Khan in Mortal Kombat, I will promise you Earthrealm. I know plenty of Earthrealm leaders willing to follow a highly intellectual person such as yourself."

Rain looked at me as I stepped over and loudly whispered into his ear. "And the best part: if anyone ever mocks your purple attire, you can order them to be tortured and killed."

The offer of the ability to kill all dissenters proved too much for Rain, as he simply stood there, relaxed in a position to cull over the offer. Before he could respond, however, Shao Kahn interrupted.

"Never mind Rain... I will deal with you myself!"

Dashing forward, the Emperor caught me off guard with a shoulder block that both broke my ribs and sent me flying. He prepared to finish me off when Mileena lept forward, positioning herself between me and her father. Kahn looked at me before uttering what I thought would be the last words I would ever hear:

"Mileena's death is no matter. I can always transfer her essence to a new body. You, on the other hand, will die. PERMANENTLY."

I knew Shao Kahn was likely right, but I had one last factor to even the playing field with...


	7. Teddy Saves the Day

**MILEENA'S POV**

I froze, placed in front of my playmate in order to protect him, expecting a blow from my father's hammer which surely would have killed the both of us, when everyone gasped. Slowly opening my eyes, I saw my father looking in befuddlement at me. Or more precisely, he was looking at Trojan. Slowly turning around, my eyes opened wide in shock as I spotted what he was holding up, visible to everyone in the room.

It was my teddy.

Stained red by Scorpion's blood and heavily flattened by its ride on the subway, the object in Trojan's hand was still very clearly the teddy bear I had stitched. My father especially seemed surprised by what my playmate was holding.

"What is this?"

Trojan stood up, moving out from behind me as he held the teddy bear up for all to see, especially Scorpion, who seemed downright ready to explode as he eyed the inanimate creation of mine.

"This is a teddy bear, typically a gift given to a crush in Earthrealm culture." Trojan gently tossed the bear in his right hand before catching with his left. "Surprisingly enough, traditions seem to spread between realms... This teddy was made by your daughter as a gift for Scorpion."

My father raised a hand to his helmet, either disgusted by or surprised at the care and attention that went into my soft and fluffy creation. "Then explain to me why this 'teddy bear' appears to be dead!"

My playmate did an excellent job at calming my father down. "See, that's why I attacked Scorpion. Not only did he attack Mileena, who just wanted to give him a gift, but he also threw her present into the path of an oncoming train. That's why it's squished. I thought I'd killed that jackwagon when I threw him onto the tracks as well, but I guess not."

The Emperor looked at myself and Trojan before slowly turning to Scorpion. Knowing my father well, I merely smiled, ready to enjoy the virulent talking-down that he was about to unleash on poor Scorpy.

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

Well... I certainly seemed to take the heat off of me and Mileena. Kahn's eyes were blazing even brighter than Scorpion's. It made me smile to watch him get angry at someone that wasn't me.

Pointing at Scorpion, Kahn yelled loud enough to shake the very foundation of the palace.

"SCORPION, GET OVER HERE!"

The yellow ninja begrudgingly stepped forward, facing the taller Emperor as he was shamed over the use of his apparent catchphrase.

"You are to apologize, both to Mileena and Trojan, for your behavior unbecoming of a warrior. This man has shown more honor with regards to my daughter then you have in the entirety of your existence in this realm! Perhaps I should permanently end you and replace you with Trojan..."

Scorpion turned towards the both of us, bowing firstly before Mileena, then before me. "I sincerely apologize for my actions in the subway. I have dishonored myself, both as a Shirai Ryu and as a man. I..." he paused, struggling to spit out the words, "...I beg for your forgiveness."

While I merely stood there, giving a quick nod to the yellow ninja, Mileena ran forward and hugged him. "Aw, Scorpy! I could never remain mad at you!"

Plucking the teddy from my grasp, she moved forward, intending to try yet again to force him into accepting the plush bear, only for Scorpion to disappear in a blaze of yellow fire.

Perhaps now was the time to, with everyone in attendance, make an extra-bold statement to Kahn and his minions. Turning to face all of them, I began my mentally-prepared speech.

"Emperor Shao Kahn," I began, "I have obediently followed your laws since I first stepped foot in your realm of Outworld. I have shown respect and honor becoming of a warrior during my tenure here, and have served my mistress, your daughter Mileena, well. As such, I ask today for your permission to begin a more personal relationship with your daughter. I wish to love her, court her favor, treat her with respect and honor, protect her from all that may attempt to harm her, and generally strive to be the kind of man your daughter deserves."

"What I mean," I concluded, having run out of fancy words and well-versed speech to use, "is this: Is it alright if I be Mileena's boyfriend?"

The audience was stunned, as was Kahn, but he began to laugh loudly, seemingly mocking my sincere words.

"You? Court my daughter? You are but her servant! Why would I let a simpleton such as yourself have a relationship with my Mileena?"

I paused, considering my options. "If I must, I will face as many of your minions as you require me to."

Kahn's eyes lit up. "A challenge? Very well... I shall arrange a series of challenges for you to prepare, a tower of them, if you may. Should you successfully defeat all of them, I shall allow my daughter to decide if she wishes to pursue a relationship with you. Your first challenge shall be tomorrow, as I hereby give you the night to prepare. I sincerely hope you are prepared to test your luck, Earthrealmer. You will need all of it you can muster to defeat my challenges."

Dismissing the party inside the room, I turned and exited, Mileena at my heels. "So, did you really mean all those things you said?"

I nodded to her. "Yes I do, Mileena. You deserve a great guy to be in a relationship with, and I feel that I can be that guy. Besides, your father's challenges can't be that bad, can they?"

Mileena took her mask off, eying me once more with her bare face. "You do not know what my father is truly capable of. His challenges will be far more difficult then anything you have faced before. Do not think you will be able to slide through them so easily!"

Sighing, I stared at Mileena for what felt like a long time before I was interrupted by her.

"Um... Trojan? What are you staring at?"

I lost my train of thought. "Um... I don't remember, actually. Sorry about that, babe..."


	8. More Than a Clone

**MARKUS X'S POV**

Well, this was certainly a conundrum I had gotten myself into. A challenge tower, full of the hardest challenges Shao Kahn could come up with, and I had a mere twenty-four hours to prepare for it? I knew the chances of success(or survival, for that matter) were extraordinarily slim, and as such, I poured all of my effort into my current project: reconstructing my suit.

First, I utilized the portal in Outworld to transport myself back to my workshop, where I picked up my tools to work on the suit with. With them in my hands, I traveled with Mileena to the Flesh Pits, turning the former laboratory of Shang Tsung into a full-scale tool shop.

Starting with repairing the armor, I heated the external plates up enough that they could be bent, allowing me to re-form them into their original shapes. I then moved to the helmet, which I ground down a bit. Having some spare polycarbonate, I cut out the sectioned three-piece visor and replaced it with a single curved piece of the plexiglass material before starting my work on the gloves.

The gloves were the most difficult part of the suit to re-engineer. I firstly added the buzzsaw from Cyrax onto the glove that originally held the flamethrower, which now held a high-power mace spray instead. The other hand received a spare weapon as well: a small retractable taser barb mounted in front of and below the wrist-blade.

Of course, I would never let Sektor's flamethrower go to waste... Attaching it to the rear of the suit(which I covered with a reasonably thick piece of titanium), I ran small tubes through the arms of the suit that led to the palms of the gloves. When the fingers were in a certain position, a small spark would ignite the compressed gas and produce tremendous flames.

My suit fully restored, I figured there was one going to do: paint it. Keeping the kevlar undersuit black, I meticulously painted the armor panels a dark shade of purple, similar to the color of Mileena's outfit, while keeping the visor clear for superior visibility.

As I waited for the paint to dry, I heard footsteps coming from further inside the gore-filled lab. Hearing them stop, I stepped out in a t-shirt and shorts, witnessing a very somber sight.

Mileena, my dearest female friend whom I cared more about than any other girl in the world, was sitting in front of a tank that appeared to be carrying an exact replica of her. The only differences were the attire(the clone was wearing nothing but a few bandages over her private parts), and the lack of purplish eye shadow.

Hearing me come towards her, Mileena kept her head down as she continued looking at the clone in the tank. "So, I suppose you now know the truth."

Unsure of what she meant, I shrugged. "If the truth is that you look good in bandages, the answer is yes."

Standing up, Mileena's voice immediately became harsher and more virulent. "No, Trojan! I am just a clone, a mere pathetic copy of someone else."

I raised an eyebrow. This did make sense, to a degree. The ugly males, the hybridized visage... I now understood that she was likely a creation of Shao Kahn or one of his other sorcerers, possibly Shang Tsung.

"And why should I care if you're a clone or not? You are your own person. 'Mileena is Mileena,' and no one else."

Looking up for a brief moment, the princess of Outworld motioned for me to sit down with her. I could tell that she was about to tell me something very personal.

"I have been reviled by my 'sister' Kitana my entire life. More precisely, she is the one I was cloned from, though I was crossed with some Tarkatan blood as well, if you haven't already noticed. The moment I woke up and tried to start a family relationship with her, she attacked me, called me a 'monstrosity!' She was so pretty, so fair, so... sad and alone."

I merely nodded. "And this fully-grown clone... You came to it why?"

She sighed before putting her hand to the glass of the tank. "I come here to remind myself of what I am: a copy. A replica. A cheap substitute for the real thing. In the eyes of everyone but you, I am an outcast, a hideous substitute for my 'sister' now that she has allied herself with the Earthrealm warriors and that accursed Shaolin monk, Liu Kang."

Gently reaching over, I softly grabbed her left hand, my fingers gently grazing over her palm as I stared deep into those rich yellow eyes.

"I know how it feels to be an outcast, Mileena. Back home, I've been called everything, from a loony kid with delusions of grandeur to an absolute nut. People thought I was crazy when I spent the money I saved by dropping out of college on a suit of armor. I've spent so much time working on the armor that many of the people I used to be near left me, except for Parsek. He was the only guy who ever came around to help me with my projects, and the only person I know who was proficient in several forms of martial arts. He's still one of the few friends I have back home..."

As I finished, time seemed to slow down around us. I heard no drips of blood, no screams from a half-living abomination, nothing but the sound of my own heartbeat. Slowly, I raised my hand up, removing the veil from Mileena's face before closing my eyes and doing yet again something quite maddening.

I kissed her.

This was no cheek kiss, head kiss, or even Eskimo kiss. This was a full, real, lip-to-lip(or lip-to-teeth) kiss. we were in that position for several seconds before I backed off, licking my lips at their feeling of having touched the barbed biters that had torn many people apart over the years.

"Your kiss tastes like barbecue." I know, a stupid thing to say, but I said it anyway before finishing up with something lovey-dovey sounding. "And I like barbecue very much."

Mileena's eyes twinkled as we firmly embraced there, in front of her clone tank, before heading to the throne room. It was challenge tower time!

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

I confidently strode into the room with Trojan, wearing an outfit from my wardrobe that could only be described as classic. The outfit in question was a leotard slit down the middle, held together by well-woven straps of leather. I had specially gotten my hair done for this event, something I firmly expected to see Trojan win despite the odds.

As we strolled into the throne room, I immediately noticed that Sindel, Cyrax, and Sektor were nowhere to be seen. Neither were Quan Chi or Noob Saibot. Almost everyone else, however, was there, including Scorpy, whom I hoped was feeling at least a bit jealous. Some new faces were in the area as well: A clean-shaven middle-aged man, a dark-skinned girl wearing a black robe with the hood down, revealing dark black hair, and a young man wearing a simple black version of the Lin Kuei or Shirai Ryu attire.

Pounding the shaft of his hammer against the floor, my father spoke in a booming voice to initiate this tower of challenges he had artificed.

"TROJAN!"

My soon-to-be-boyfriend turned to face my father.

"You have chosen to participate in my challenge tower... The rules are very simple: you will pass through six challenges of increasing difficulty. If you succeed in all of my challenges, then and only then will you have the right to become Mileena's boyfriend if she wishes it. I hope you have prepared for this, as your first challenge is forthcoming."

Appearing in front of Trojan was none other then my friend Reptile. While I wished for my Teddy to win this fight, I did not wish to see my Saurian friend killed either.

"The rules of this challenge are simple," my father said as he reached his hands towards the two combatants, green energy washing over them. "Both of you have both been poisoned. The only way for you to save yourself from the effects of this poison is to defeat your opponent before the poison kills you. Are you prepared?"

Both kombatants nodded at my father.

"Very well then... FIGHT!"


	9. Challenge 1: Him or Me!

**MARKUS X'S POV**

As Shao Kahn yelled "Fight," I quickly rushed towards Reptile, who... disappeared? I stopped moving forward, looking for where that humanoid dinosaur had gone off to, when I felt a punch in the gut, keeling over. Reptile's invisibility disappeared, and he quickly elbowed my neck, causing something to pop as I heard a distinct "Crack!" On my hands and knees, I felt the scaly ninja kick me in the chest, soccer style, not even giving me a moment to stand up. With the poison quickly diminishing my ability to fight, I knew I would have to do something desperate in order to shift the momentum in my favor.

Rolling over, I pointed my taser barb at the Saurian's neck before releasing it, mockingly shouting "GET OVER HERE!" as the nail-like tip flew at high speed towards Reptile, much to Scorpion's shock and dismay. The very moment it penetrated his skin, Reptile began to seize up, giving me precious seconds to recover from the opening beating he had put on me. Standing up, I returned to my feet the moment the battery I had used gave out, spraying a terribly thick cloud of mace at the humanoid lizard.

At first it did not seem to affect him, but after he blinked, I could visibly see his face give off a burning sensation. Over a period of about five seconds, he began to claw at his eyes, hissing and growling as the mace made its way further into Reptile's eyelids. With an opportunity before me, I activated Cyrax's buzzsaw before quickly slashing it across the Saurian's chest. Seemingly down for the count, I made sure he was finished, spraying the reptilian ninja with the flames emanating from my palms. Maybe now I knew how Scorpion and Sektor feel when they use fire.

Turning to Shao Kahn, I graciously bowed as a purple energy emanated from his throne, washing over myself and Reptile as the poisonous magic was purged from our systems. "Well done... You have defeated my first test, but there are still a great many more for you to complete. The next challenge shall begin later today. For now, all of you are dismissed!"

As the crowd watching us subsided, I stepped over to the badly wounded Reptile. The green ninja had his head bowed, waiting for a final strike that would result in him becoming another fatality of this conflict. However, I had other plans.

Reaching my gloved hand down, I assisted the Saurian in getting up. As he removed his mask, revealing the heavy amount of charring his flesh had suffered at my hands, I heard his raspy voice utter some barely decipherable words.

"You... spare me?"

Respectfully nodding, I turned to Mileena. "Take our buddy here to the infirmary. I have some work to do on the suit, and a neck to be popped back into place." Unconsciously, I raised my hand to my neck, attempting to push the dislodged bone back into position as my soon-to-be-girlfriend and Reptile walked away.

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

Walking down the hallway with Reptile, I smiled at him underneath my veil. "So, what do you think of my playmate there?"

Speaking his native Zaterran tongue instead of the crude English he had used to convey his surprise at friendship, Reptile unloaded his shock on me. "He is an excellent fighter, though I question how strong he is without the armor protecting him. There is also the question of him aging faster than you, since both Edenians and Tarkatans live longer than Earthrealmers."

Giving a subtle nod, I responded to my friend's doubts. "He was strong enough to defeat Scorpion in the subway using only Cyrax and Sektor's old weaponry. As for aging: let us not forget that a little sorcery goes a long way in regards to increasing one's longevity."

As the two of us continued walking to the infirmary, discussing Trojan and his chances of winning the trials, I stepped in something red and gooey. Looking down, I noticed that both of us were standing in a red pile that we knew was Skarlet.

"Failed creation," I muttered, kicking at some of the slimy substance my father's replacement for Jade was formed of. "Can you even hold yourself together?"

Skarlet's response was to form herself in front of us. "I have had enough of you and your insolent talk! With Shao Kahn's sorcery having improved my thinking skills, I will show you who the dominant female assassin in Outworld is!"

My response was to ignore her. "Reptile, I do not suppose you could make it to the infirmary on your own, could you? I have to put someone in their place..."

The injured Saurian merely nodded and walked away, leaving myself and Skarlet alone in the hallway.

I threw the first blow, literally, as my sais flew from my hands towards the bloodspawn. Skarlet quickly slid underneath them with a slide, gliding over a pathway of blood that emanated from her own body. I was both disgusted and amused at the strange trail as I jumped, quickly teleporting and kicking the sorcery-infused woman until she was down. Intending on impaling the beastly abomination to the floor, I missed as she jumped out of the way. Stabbing herself with one of her swords, the bloody ninja threw a ball of her own substance at me. Strangely enough, this hurt, draining my energy as Skarlet slid back towards me, throwing a kunai at my leg.

Ending up on my knees, pulling the throwing blade out of my leg, Skarlet jumped onto me, pinning me to the floor in a bloody show of force. Her face was mere millimeters from my own as she stared at me with her crimson eyes, her unnaturally scarlet hair swaying in a ponytail beside her.

"You... Your worst fear is coming true."

Stabbing herself with one of her kunai, Skarlet slowly turned back into the amorphous creature of blood that we knew she truly was. Unlike what I had expected, though, she did not try to kill me. Instead, her essence began to flow around my entire body, coating it as it creeped up my waist, past my shoulders and up my neck. I struggled to scrape her off with my sais, but it was futile. I was quickly immolated in the red woman's presence.

When I awoke, I felt different. Changed, So to say. A voice began to whisper into my ear. _"Oh, Mileena! I know that you have a dream. A dream of killing your template and living as a free, independent woman."_

My limbs began to move unnaturally, not of their own accord. I found myself being taken to my room as I reached down, forcibly grabbing a mirror and pulling it to my face.

_"Welcome to your nightmare."_

I looked into the mirror... My skin was flawless, my eyes... natural. My hair was long and flowing, my outfit still revealing, but less so then my typical attire. Opening my mouth as wide as I could, I was horrified to discover that it too was normal. In fact, if I did not know any better...

I would have said that I had become Kitana.

The very thought horrified me... It would mean that I had become exactly what I hated. The voice of Skarlet silently stalked through my ears, and while I tried to ignore it, I could not.

_"How does it feel to be what you revile? To be a replica of your progenitor down to the last detail? It hurts, does it not?"_

Silently, I nodded, tears coming to my eyes as the bloody ninja continued.

_"Now how would you feel if you were considered less of a person because of what you are?"_

"I would be infuriated. I would mercilessly slaughter all those who dared to look down upon me."

_"Exactly. Now promise that you will cease your insulting of me merely due to my biology and I will free myself from you."_

"I promise." After all, I did not wish to remain as my vile 'sister,' did I? Skarlet reacted honorably to the situation, removing herself from my body before forming in front of me, walking off without a word.

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

Having repaired and re-powered the armor, I returned to Kahn's throne room later that evening. Strangely, Mileena was not there to greet me, though she did enter the room during Kahn's monologue.

"Trojan, with your victory over Reptile, I have found you worthy of moving to the next challenge. Skarlet!"

I facepalmed, not wanting to deal with the stupid blood creation again, when I noticed some distinct differences from her last appearance.

Instead of an outfit that looked like an oriental version of Princess Leia's metal bikini, Skarlet was now wearing a skimpier female version of the ninja outfit worn by Scorpion, Noob Saibot, and the young black-attired ninja. Her mask was the same, but her hair appeared shorter, short enough that none was sticking out from underneath her hood.

"Your next challenge will be especially difficult: Skarlet will be traveling to Earthrealm on a mission to assassinate a particular head of civilian resistance forces in the city. However, she is very clearly incapable of behaving like an Earthrealmer should. You will teach her to act like an Earthrealmer so that she may gain his trust, get close to him, and kill him. She must successfully pass off as an Earthrealmer according to my standards by tomorrow morning."

I was stunned. "Hold up, Emperor Kahn! I thought this challenge tower was going to be straight up fights!"

Kahn smiled a very evil smile at me as he laughed. "It is a challenge tower, and fights do not make up the only challenges. All I can say to you again is this: test your luck."


	10. Challenge 2: Bloody Teaching

**MARKUS X'S POV**

That jackwagon! I knew he was going to throw me a curveball in these trials! As the rest of the party left with the Emperor, I was stuck in the throne room with Skarlet and Mileena. The blood creature turned and looked at me before raising a delicate eyebrow. "Well, are we going to begin my training, or not?"

I merely nodded before motioning for her and Mileena to follow me into the portal leading to Earthrealm. Back in the carnage of the city streets, I scanned around before finding exactly what I was looking for: a clothing store. Stepping inside the battered building, I turned around, holding the door open for the two women. "Ladies first."

As the two scantily-clad ninjas passed into the rather large building, I scanned through the intact signs before hurredly rushing towards one marked "Women's Clothing." Finding a pair of jeans and a red tube top, I hurredly rushed back to Skarlet and shoved the clothes into her arms.

"Quick, try these on!"

I nearly facepalmed when the sorcery-enhanced creation of Shao Kahn stabbed herself, her clothing changing exactly to what I had tossed her, sans her mask and boots.

"Okay then... Go for a shoulder-length hairstyle and ditch the mask."

Skarlet did exactly as I intended. I could now see that her face was quite attractive, but as I was already enraptured with Mileena, I tried to think nothing of it. Rushing off to the shoe aisle, I found a pair of nice women's tennis shoes and some black jean shorts that were better than the jeans.

"Here, try these."

Skarlet paused, looking at me for a brief moment. "Do you enjoy watching me stab myself over and over again?"

I shrugged. "Beautiful women appearing to commit suicide over and over again are sort of mixed in my opinion. Yes, you're hot, but you're also stabbing yourself in the chest, which I'm guessing hurts."

The arcane creation looked at me, not knowing what I was talking about. It was then that I truly facepalmed, realizing I had a teaching tool available to me that I had never thought of.

"Siri!"

A voice emanated from a pocket in the kevlar jumpsuit that formed the undersuit of the armor. "What is it you need, Markus?"

Pulling an object out of my pocket, an iPhone 5 I had wasted a hundred dollars upgrading from my iPhone 4S for, I quickly handed it to Skarlet. "This is Siri. Ask her questions about Earthrealm culture and she should give you an answer. I have the latest updates, after all."

Skarlet looked at the object in her hand before looking back at me. "This... person... will give me the answers I need?"

I nodded at her. "Sure! My iPhone 5 has a spare battery case. Can run for sixteen hours at full brightness without running out of juice."

She clearly had no idea what I was talking about, but began to talk to Siri as myself and Mileena left her there. Before we exited, I reminded the red ninja of one last thing.

"Be sure to have that phone with you when we meet up later! After this is all over, I need to give some friends a call."

She nodded as myself and my babe left the room, heading down the street to see what we could do in less than twelve hours.

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

Well, I certainly knew what we could do to pass the time, but for now, I was content with watching the carnage unfold as Trojan and I watched a Tormentor fight with several policemen. The Outworld creature was too slow to hit any of the miniscule men, but likewise, their bullets did nothing to it, reflecting off of its hide like a mirror. I smiled, knowing that there was no chance of any mere Earthrealm law enforcement stopping such a powerful beast.

As we leaned against the guardrail, I heard someone nearby. With a quick sniff, I immediately recognized who the person was.

"Jade..."

Trojan looked at me, clearly wondering who Jade was, but quickly found out as her razorang flew through the air, grinding against his helmet for a split second Before returning to her grasp. As Trojan turned to look at the former assassin, be paused for a moment before taking his hand and smacking the front of his helmet.

"OH COME ON! First a reptile ninja, then a woman made entirely out of blood, and now a dark-skinned Princess Leia wannabe? Wait, don't tell me! Your full name is Jade Kimona Wanaleia."

Smacking my playmate on his shoulder rather hard, I shut him up, not wanting to hear him rant about Jade, though I knew it would be funny if he did so. "What do you want, Jade? Another shot at dealing with me?"

Jade merely rolled her eyes at me before looking at Trojan. "So, it would seem that you were given a Lin Kuei cyborg as a partner. How... Innovative."

The moment I heard her say 'cyborg,' I regretted not immediately attacking her as Trojan clearly began to get infuriated.

"WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DO YOU PEOPLE KEEP CALLING ME A CYBORG!?"

My furious soon-to-be-boyfriend removed his helmet, his face turning red from sheer infuriation.

"I SWEAR TO GOD THAT THE NEXT PERSON TO CALL ME A CYBORG IS GOING TO GET THEIR BUTT HACKED OFF THEIR BODY AND MOUNTED ON A PLAQUE OVER MY FIREPLACE!"

I tried unsuccessfully to calm Trojan down, all the while listening to Jade mock me.

"I expected you to take care of your partner, but then again, you do run through them faster than Tanya does easily manipulative men. I am rather surprised that this one evidently has not seen you without your mask. If he had, I would have expected him to be quivering with fear over your face by now."

I was about to throw my sais at the annoying Edenian when Trojan broke off from his hatred and focused solely on Jade's last comment.

"Hold up... Who do you think you are insulting my girlfriend like that?"

Jade was visibly shocked, and I smiled as she soaked in the fact that I was in a relationship, albeit not officially.

"I am Jade, former assassin of Shao Kahn and bodyguard of Kitana, Princess of Edenia."

"Kitana?" Trojan's eyebrow raised. "You mean the stuck-up, ill-bred woman who from day one harassed and demeaned my precious Mileena?"

"Harrassed? Mileena tried to kill her!"

"Mileena has told me her side of the story. She awoke, attempted to be friendly towards her 'sister,' but was scorned, called a monstrosity, and attacked by Kitana. You are very closed-minded to accept Kitana's words as fact."

"I trust Kitana to tell the truth. Now please, let us dispense with this worthless talk. I must meet with the others in the Temple. Do not attempt to stop me."

I lurched forward, intending to fight Jade and end her worthless life, but was grabbed by Trojan. "Mileena, stop it! Leave Miss Stupid over here to her own devices. With blind loyalty such as that, I don't see her surviving for much longer."

Slowly, my bloodlust calmed down to the point where I did not want to plunge my sais into Jade before tearing her neck out with my teeth. "You are right, Trojan. Let us return to Outworld. My father will need us soon for the conclusion of your next challenge."

The two of us turned away from Jade, but Trojan turned quickly back. "Nice meeting you, Jade."

I was not sure, but I thought I heard Jade say "What in the name of..." before we left hearing distance.


	11. Challenge 3: The New Ninja, Neksus

**MARKUS X'S POV**

As the two of us returned to Kahn's palace, I was beginning to feel a distinct lack of sleep. Mileena, on the other hand, seemed to be as active as ever, even moreso then usual as she twirled around and skipped with me down the halls to the throne room. As the doors opened, I was quite surprised at what I saw.

Skarlet was there, standing right next to Shao Kahn as the two of them examined my iPhone. They appeared to be using one of the apps I had downloaded, one in particular that a friend of mine had convinced me to get. Kahn's eyes glowed an intense red as he focused on slashing the zombies with his character's katana. Clearly frustrated with his lack of progress, he sneered before handing the iPhone back to Skarlet, who tossed it over to me.

"This device of your is most interesting... I assume it is similar to the weapons Kano sold to my minions?"

I nodded. "Yes, but it's not a weapon in and of itself. This is a highly advanced communication device capable of almost instantly connecting two people together. It also can be used for entertainment, filming, audio recording, photo editing, and other purposes." I smiled, my helmet under my arm. Though the inhabitants of Outworld seemed to be very proficient with sorcery and whatnot, their technology was truly medieval compared to that of Earthrealm. The desire of the Emperor to constantly conquer likely meant that technological advancement was not a priority for Outworlders, which would explain the swords, staffs, and other ancient weapons I had seen in the hands of these various warriors.

Gently wiping some of Skarlet's bloody essence off of my iPhone, I waited for Kahn to inevitably start the trial. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long, as he motioned with his warhammer towards the hemomancing ninja, who took center stage as she began to act as though she was an Earthrealmer.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Kahn. I'm Ruby Fox, no relation to Megan. I was born in Chicago, Illinois, before moving to New York City for a modeling job. Between getting modeling gigs, I work at a homeless shelter, with another part-time job at a clothing store. My parents died in a car accident when I was little, so I was sent to the nearest orphanage, where I grew up."

Bowing to Shao Kahn in a very formal fashion, even I was impressed at how detailed and well-informed Skarlet was. Evidently, she was going to be quite successful at her infiltration.

"You have taught my newest creation well, warrior, but more challenges on the tower await."

Kahn motioned towards one of the figures next to him, and the ninja in black, simple attire stepped forward.

"For your next challenge, you will face Neksus, adopted son of the Lin Kuei Grandmaster and master of teleportation!"

To demonstrate his skills, Neksus stood perfectly still before disappearing instantaneously in a flash of light and reappearing to the right of where he originally stood. He then teleported to the left of where he was standing before returning to his original spot, pointing at me. "You will be my entrance to the Cyber Initiative!"

I motioned towards him. "Bring it, if you think you've got what it takes."

Neksus nodded and dashed towards me. I raised an arm to block, planning on starting the fight cautiously, but the Lin Kuei disappeared. I knew where he had teleported to the moment I was knocked to the ground from behind. Quickly rolling forward, I returned to a standing position, only to wind up being hit from both the front and back with a teleport kick. This reminded me of what Mileena had done during our first encounter, and I swiftly moved to counter it.

"You're a Lin Kuei? I guess this means you don't have a girlfriend..."

Momentarily distracted by my insult, I was able to take one of my Glocks and fire a couple of rounds at him. Though one round did hit him in the shoulder, the second missed as Neksus teleported away.

Scanning the immediate area, I did the best thing I could do: activating the mace spray in my gauntlet, I span around, spraying the irritant liquid in all directions nearby. A cry quickly pursuaded me to turn and, with an armored fist, blast Neksus in the jaw with a haymaker. As he stumbled back, I fired my taser barb at his neck, the penetrating shard of conductive metal causing the well-trained ninja to break into a fit of seizing up. Hurriedly making my way towards him, I wrapped an arm around his neck and squeezed as hard as I could for a period of several seconds before the Lin Kuei fell at my feet, limp and unconscious.

"Guess I'm halfway there. What's next? A metrosexual ice-breathing superhuman? A demon summoned from the deepest pits of hell to seduce me? A trampoline kombat challenge?"

The Emperor glared at me with a gaze unmatched by any teacher, boss, or former drill sergeant I had ever seen."Your next challenge shall begin tomorrow, and now that you mention it, you will be facing demons. Four of them, to be exact. I suggest you begin to prepare."

Nodding, I left the throne room, Mileena following me as we returned to her quarters.

Taking the armor off, I smiled at my soon-to-be-girlfriend. "you know, that teleport kick Neksus did reminded me so much of our first fight..."

"Aw, Trojan, I love how close our relationship has gotten in the past couple of days!"

I merely shrugged. "They say outcasts form bonds with one another faster than normal people do. Guess this is an example."

Turning around, I noticed that Mileena had yet again removed her clothes in an attempt to either seduce me, or just plain be sexy. "I don't suppose that you'd be interested in giving me a back massage, would you?"

Dramatically bowing as I put on a clean and unstained kimono, I attempted to imitate the voice changer in my helmet. "By your command, mistress."

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

Relaxing my body, I shivered as the warm, soothing fingers of Trojan's hands ran across my back. With a gentle amount of force, he began to slowly knead and press down on my back with his fingertips. The feeling of smooth, warm flesh relieving the stress from my consistently taut muscles was almost too much to bear as I felt the tension in my back begin to dissipate.

Trojan then ran his palms up and down my back in series of strokes, intending to find the points on my back that likely would require a penetrating amount of force to crack. Finding a spot that he considered far too taut, he pressed down with his elbow, and I cried out in relief as the firm feeling was shattered into a silky wave of comfort.

Evidently, though, I was too loud, as one of the higher-ranking servants opened the door. Looking over me, she frowned. "I was expecting to see something else."

"Li Mei," I chuckled, "do you really think me to be so predictable?"

The servant, seemingly as young as myself, perhaps younger, said nothing as she walked out of the room, hoping to next time catch me and my playmate playing a very different game...


	12. Challenge 4: Mythologies

**MARKUS X'S POV**

Having gone with Mileena to the library in order to find whatever information I could about the 'demons' Shao Kahn had referenced, I pored over shelf after shelf of books. This enormous vault of books was so large that I actually had to use a ladder to look on the upper shelves for any worthwhile reading material.

"The History of the Tarkata, Book One of Five Hundred... Edenian Landscape Paintings... Shao Kahn's Slave Girl Calendars..." I reminded myself to keep the last book. There were plenty of my friends back home that would enjoy it. Reaching over to grab a thick book, I had just wrapped my hand around it when the ladder underneath me slipped away, causing me to fall a good fifteen feet to the ground. I was lucky that I still had the book in my hands, despite its bulk crushing down on me.

My lovable assassin slowly slinked towards me, looking down at me with her penetrating yellow eyes. "Hmph. It seems you are not as strong as I thought. Even Baraka could lift this book up."

"Yeah, well... I'm not a crazy bladed-armed freakshow like he is, able to leap large chasms full of people in a single bound, so..."

My excuse was barely wasted on Mileena as she helped remove the massive tome from my chest. Sitting up, I peered over the title of the enormous book.

"The Immortal Grimoire of Everything You Could Ever Want to Know About the Netherrealm and Its Inhabitants. Sounds like a good read, but maybe the title should simply be rewritten to 'Hell For Dummies.'"

Opening the leather-bound cover of the ancient text, I scrolled through the index, looking for the information I needed. "Locations... History... Races!" I scrolled to the page in the book that I was directed to. "Oni... Wraiths... Spectres... Demons! Okay, let's see what we've got here..."

Opening the page, I expected to find some sort of hideous beast-like creature staring back at me, but instead, images of human-looking beings appeared on the title page.

"Demon is the generic name for several specific kinds of creatures: Oni that have mastered magic and sorcery, purely dark beings born in the Netherrealm as inhabitants of said realm, or the creatures created to serve Lucifer prior to his removal as leader of the Netherrealm by Quan Chi."

"The first type of demon originally manifests itself as an Oni: the hideous, malformed abomination that is the physical essence of a dead soul. Through the archaic process of spells, potions, and other dangerous forms of sorcery, the Oni can change its form into something more human-like, the power of the dead realm coursing through their now-demon body. These demons not only have the capability to perform feats of magic unknown to inhabitants of other realms, but they typically can bend others to follow and obey them, even other lesser demons."

"The second type of demon is a native inhabitant of the Netherrealm. Despite their appearances as seemingly human males or females, beneath their facade lies a very different form, typically described by witnesses as a black, murky, formless yet solid void that seems to emanate feelings of darkness and despair. These demons, though typically followers of their naturally evil nature, have a greater level of autonomy, typically not attacking those who come to their parts of the Netherrealm unless threatened or controlled by another force."

"The third and final kind of demon is the most ancient of all. This particular kind of demon was created by the Elder Gods a great many years ago as assistants for Lucifer, the being placed in charge of the Netherrealm. Typically, they are red skinned, with a pair or more of horns sticking from their head. Though Lucifer has long since been deposed as ruler of the Netherrealm, these creatures still follow out his commands, torturing the guilty when they are found and defeated, whether dead or alive."

Closing the book, I had finally found the information I needed to defeat whatever unholy foes Shao Kahn chose for me to face. However, I had neglected one key aspect of this entire situation.

"Um... How exactly are we going to get this back up there?"

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

Acting as though we had not left the book lying on the floor for a servant to replace, Teddy and I returned to the throne room. Here surprisingly was Quan Chi. Cyrax and Sektor had both returned from their mission as well. Standing silent, I watched as Trojan stepped forward, preparing to face the challenge.

"You have proven yourself to be a truly noble warrior, Trojan," my father began, "but this next challenge shall test your numbering. Quan Chi!"

The demon smiled and nodded at my Emperor before opening a portal and motioning to my soon-to-be-boyfriend. "Come with me. Your next challenge awaits."

Stepping forward, I knew that under the helmet was a fearless grin as my playmate stepped through the portal leading to the Netherrealm. Incapable of seeing what would go on, I chose to return to my room, hopefully awaiting Trojan's safe return.

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

The Netherrealm was everything I thought it would be.

Dismembered yet barely alive bodies hanging from thin lines, pillars comprised of human skulls, and a sea of molten lava with grisly hands reaching from it were the primary things that I saw. The growls of cerberus-like creatures were heard quite clearly from this distance, and as I looked below, I saw that myself and the demonic sorcerer were standing on a good-sized island in the sea of magma.

"Your challenge," Quan Chi stated, "will be to defeat four of my personal assassins in individual kombat bouts, one after the other."

I merely nodded as Quan Chi uttered yet another ritual phrase, causing a black portal to open up on the ground. Out of the portal came... four attractive women? At least they appeared that way. I knew, however, that they were truly demons in disguise.

"Which of you wishes to face this young, brash challenge in Mortal Kombat first?"

The one with the darkest skin and the whitest hair of the four stepped forward. "I will take him."

Quan Chi stepped back. "Very well, Jataaka. Fight!"

Unsheathing her sword, the demoness known as Jataaka dashed towards me, the weapon glowing with an eerie blue light. If it wasn't so busy being used to try and kill me, I would've sworn that the blade was that of a lightsaber.

As Jataaka rushed at me, I quickly moved out of the way, avoiding her weapon's blade as I activated the flamethrower. Surprisingly enough, it did nothing to her but tick her off as she shung her blade in my direction, a wave of energy flying off the weapon as it hit my armor, knocking me back towards the lava. Releasing my wrist blade, I dove towards her, the diamond-tipped edge of my blade contacting the glowing demon-forged end of Jataaka's weapon. Firing both my taser barb and my mace spray towards the demoness at the same time, I was pleasantly surprised to watch her first convulse, then cry out in agony at the stinging sensation of the toxic mist I had sprayed in her face. With my opportunity available, I wrapped my left hand around Jataaka's own, which was wrapped around the hilt of her weapon, and shattered her wrist with a blow from my right fist. The hellspawn dropped her weapon, which I picked up, plunging it into her chest. She could not be killed, anyways - demons simply come back in their true form once killed.

As I bowed to the fallen corpse of Jataaka, I took her sword and sheath, removing it from her belt and placing the scabbarded blade near me for later use. "Alright, who wants some next?" I looked over the three remaining female demons.

The one with no white hair moved to fight. "You will be taught a lesson by me!"

"As you wish, Kia. Fight!"

Unlike the last fight, this one was relatively short. Kia threw her boomerang-like blades at me, which stuck into my armor. Extricating them from my suit's plates, I dashed at this new demoness, grappling with her before picking up her surprisingly light frame and tossing her into the massive sea of lava. She struggled for a bit before being swallowed by the sea of dead, her intact hand slowly sinking into the volcanic liquid. Looking at the boomerang blades, I merely added them to the pile of trophy weapons I was accumulating.

"Two down, two to go. Who do I have to deal with this time?"

The female demon with an exceptionally large dagger chose to face me in kombat next. "You may have defeated my weaker sisters, but you will not defeat me!"

"We shall see, Sareena. Fight!"

Unlike the others, Sareena was swift, quick, and deadly. As she dashed towards me, slashing at my armor with her weapon, I could barely keep up with her. Doing a quick backwards roll to gain some space, I cried out as the female demon threw some knives at me, one of which penetrated between the shoulder plates on my right side. Pulling the weapon out, I waited for her to dash forward again before attempting to hit her in the chest at close range. Ironically, I did hit her in the chest. More precisely, her cleavage. Pausing to stare at my handiwork, I couldn't help but laugh.

"Well, I guess that's one way of getting a good shot in the chest."

My laughter only served to infuriate Sareena more as she ferverently tried to kill me with her blade. Though she did hit me several times, my armor primarily deflected the blows as I backed towards the lava. Sareena's dash towards me was exactly what I had asked for: when she was very close to me, I tripped her up ad pressed her head down into the boiling lava. She raised her head up, her skull revealed in a seeming moment of agony before her head fell limply back into the seething mass.

"I guess it's just you and me, lady. Show me what you're made of."

This last female demon was different. Sure she had the white streak of hair, as well as pale skin and facial markings, but her attire was far more modest then her sisters', consisting of a tight semitransparent black robe and wide-rimmed hat.

"Ashrah, this test will tell if you have completed your training. Fight!"

Unlike the others, Ashrah stood there, her eyes closed as I slowly walked towards her. When I was within fifteen feet of her, she pulled out an object and started poking it. I immediately felt the pain of said poke myself: it was a voodoo doll! I hurredly ran for her when she jabbed the needle into the chest of the doll, causing me to bend over in severe agony. As she continued to stab the little talisman, I thought to myself.

_"Okay... The voodoo doll works by mentally connecting itself to the target. If I can block out the connection, she can't hurt me with it."_

Focusing on the only thing I could at the moment(the large chests and revealing outfits of literally every woman I had encountered since being taken to Outworld), I began to block the object's connection from my mind as I continued forward, towards her and, in turn, my chance at victory. Dashing at her, I quickly ripped the voodoo doll from her hands before pulling out my wrist blade and sinking it deep into her heart. She and I stared in to each other's eyes for several seconds until they closed and she fell limp. Deciding to take double trophies from this kill, I took her doll and her hat, revealing a length of raven-black hair with white accents.

Letting my treasures filling my arms, I turned to Quan Chi. "Alright; now where's my way out of here?"

Slightly frustrated at the defeat of his minions, the demonic sorcerer raised his hand as a portal opened, which I walked through, my arms still holding the relics of my victories.


	13. Challenge 5: Eau De Kitana

**MILEENA'S POV**

As the green portal opened up, the demonic sorcerer I knew as Quan Chi exited, followed shortly thereafter by Trojan, who was carrying a pile of various demonic weapons in his arms. Dropping them, he ran to hug me, and I to him as the two of us embraced one another in front of the congregation of people.

"I must admit, Trojan," my father began, "I never expected you to exit the Netherrealm, alive at least. There are two challenges remaining, the next of which will begin shortly."

My playmate removed his helmet, revealing an incredulous look on his face. "No offense, Emperor Kahn, but are you crazy? I barely managed to survive your last challenge, and now you want me to go at it again with another freakishly mutilated being from this or another realm?"

Ignoring Trojan, my father continued. "You were originally defeated by Mileena in Mortal Kombat. As such, I feel it is only fair that you face her counterpart. Quan Chi!"

The leader of the Netherrealm turned to my Emperor. "Empress Sindel has successfully slaughtered the Earthrealm warriors. I can bring her soul back, though she will not be fully whole."

Wondering if this meant what I thought it did, I continued to watch as the sorcerer began a rather long incantation I nearly fell asleep in the middle of. I would never have woken up were it not for the distinct words I heard.

"You will learn respect!"

Upon hearing the voice of someone I recognized, I shot straight up.

"Sister?"

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

As I watched Mileena doze off, evidently bored by Quan Chi taking so long to finish talking, I noticed a vortex of energy that twirled within the center of the throne room. As he finished, the portal dissipated, replaced by someone, or something...

The person standing where the vortex had just been was a woman wearing a similar outfit to Mileena and Jade. However, her top was more cradling to her breasts then cleavage-inducing, and she wore long flower-like sleeves, along with bottoms that had a loincloth behind instead of in front of them. Another distinct difference was the fact that her skin was grey, bloody, and seemingly cracked in some places. Her eyes glowed red, as if she were possessed.

"You will learn respect!"

I noticed Mileena shoot up as the woman summoned a pair of long knives that opened into what I could describe as nothing more then glorified paper fans, the kinds pretty Asian women flutter while dancing or cooling off. I distinctly heard Mileena use the word 'Sister,' and from that reference, I easily discerned who this woman was.

"Kitana!"

I yelled at the decaying, reanimated body of Mileena's template with a surprising fervor. "So you are the reason for Mileena's seeming guilt in this affair!"

"Nonsense!" The former Outworld assassin barked, in a voice heavily garbled and echoed by death. "Mileena deserved every slash, punch, and kick that she received during our fight in the Flesh Pits! How dare Shang Tsung create an abhorrent abomination such as her! Her very existence mars my image!"

I looked her over. "No offense, but I think your image is pretty badly marred as is. In fact, even if you weren't undead, I still wouldn't try to start a relationship with you!"

This visibly shocked and angered the undead Edenian princess as she spread her fans open again. "I may have been damned to the Netherrealm by Shao Kahn's machinations controlling my mother, but I WILL make sure that you come down along with me!"

Throwing her fans at me, Kitana stayed distant as I moved towards her, using my flamethrower to attempt to burn her already dead skin. It was ineffectual, however, likely due to her reanimation. Getting in close, I blocked a couple of her punches before grabbing a high kick and rolling her into the prone position as I put an ankle lock in on her.

"Agh... The prone position seems good for you, Kitana! I don't suppose your lover uses it to sleep with you, does he?"

My attempt at insulting the necromancy-enhanced princess only served as a distraction, her heel nailing me in the face as she got back up. Standing to fight her, I brought my wrist blade out to punch her with, only for her to grab my arm, kick my head, and roll me over in a judo-style throw. Getting up, I turned only to have a pair of fans impale themselves in my chestplate, knocking me down yet again. Standing over me, the hideously malformed being smiled as she stomped on my legs, my chest, and finally, my groin, which I audibly cried out at.

"Any last words before you visit the gates of hell, you worthless swine?"

With nothing better to do, I tried the only thing I could think of. Pointing behind her, I questioned the princess.

"Hey, what's that?"

Amazingly, the zombified Kitana was stupid enough to check what I was pointing at, an opportunity I used to shove out my feet and kick her legs out from under her. As she and I both recovered, I ran towards her, hitting Kitana with a strong shoulder block that floored her as I stood over the princess, blade primed and ready to execute her if need be.

"I have failed... Kill me."

I raised my hand to strike her, but instead stopped. "You do not deserve torment in my hands. Get up."

The decaying spectress stood up and did something that creeped me out more than anything else in the world: ripping my helmet off, she kissed me.

I was kissed by a fricking corpse.

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

The moment that Kitana's lips touched those of my playmate, I lunged forward, tearing towards my 'sister' at a tempestuous speed before impaling her through the back with my sais. Under my mask, I smiled as the choked-up soul of Kitana shattered itself and crumbled into a small pile of dust. No one, especially not my pathetic, two-timing sister, was going to get their hands on my soon-to-be-boyfriend!

As Trojan turned to Kahn, my father merely gave an expressionless look as Li Mei came in to sweep the dust away. "Very well then... The final challenge shall begin tomorrow at the Coliseum. I guarantee you that there is no chance you will be able to gain victory!"

Storming off, assumedly to formulate what said challenge would be, I walked to my room with the disgusted Trojan, still wiping his face and tongue to get the taste of death away from him.

"With all humor aside, Mileena, if your father ever forces me into a situation that literally winds up with me kissing death, I'm going to try and kill him."

"No need to worry, Teddy. Everything's going to be okay. Besides, I need an excuse to overthrow him, and you have the perfect alibi!"

Despite his foul mood, I managed to elicit a smile and small chuckle from my playmate as the two of us returned to my room for some relaxation. I intended to pay Trojan back for his earlier favor...


	14. Challenge 6: End Game

**MILEENA'S POV**

Myself and Trojan made our way to the Coliseum on this day, the last challenge my playmate would have to face before we could officially begin our relationship.

For this formal occasion, I had worn a new outfit, one with more black in it. This outfit was more covering than my original, but instead revealed the cleavage from under my breasts instead of above them. My outfit also consisted of a new veil and long sleeves, similar to those of my 'sister's' attire.

As the two of us marched into the arena, the roar from the crowd became immensely evident as we eyed the throngs of spectators that had gathered to watch this last challenge. Stepping further into the arena, we stopped at my father's throne, where I gracefully bowed. Trojan, however, did not. Pounding his hammer on the floor, my father merely uttered four words to my playmate:

"Prove yourself to me!"

As Trojan began to fight Goro, I turned to look at Kira and Tanya, both in chains on each side of my father's throne. "You will be dealt with soon enough."

* * *

**MARCUS X'S POV**

I did not expect the uppercut I received from the tanned beast of a man. With four arms, he uppercutted me with his lower pair as I flew back, my helmet lying a great distance away as I recovered.

"Perhaps Earthrealm has finally created a warrior worthy of challenging me to the death. Face the Shokan Prince, Goro, in combat, puny human!"

Turning to face the monstrosity that was Goro, I ducked as he fired his fists at me, green energy training them as they flew overhead. I pulled out my wrist blade and got several slashes across his chest, but the surface bleeding did practically nothing to him as he span around, hitting me in the chest with a haymaker that sent me flying yet again. With my wrist-mounted mace spray, I released a cloud of choking gas towards the man-beast, who began to cough chokers like all others affected by this so far. With him incapacitated, I activated my flamethrower and blasted the Shokan for several seconds with white-hot flames of burning gas as he ignited, falling down in agony as he tried to stop the burning.

Turning to look at Shao Kahn, I merely waited for his response as he pointed angrily at me. "You may have bested Goro, but you will not beat Kintaro!"

A gate opened as the four-armed tiger-man from earlier stepped out, roaring to a raucous cheer from the crowd as he spoke crudely. "I will eat your heart!"

Nodding at him, I dashed forward, intending to strike him when he breathed a mammoth jet of fire in my direction. The flames were very penetrating as they singed my armor, the paint charred and burned off in some places. In anger, I blazed the tiger-man Kintaro with the last of my fuel. His fur was much easier to catch on fire, and as he burned, I lept onto him, punching his head with lefts, rights, haymakers, uppercuts, and whatever blows I could before leaving the other Shokan in pain on the ground. Again I looked at Shao Kahn, and again he ignored me.

"No... Kintaro has fallen! Mileena! Kill him!"

I knew that Mileena would not harm me, but when I turned around, a shock came to my face.

"Let us dance!"

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

As I heard my father order me to kill Trojan, I backed up. Doing so, I noticed another person teleporting in front of my playmate and gasped.

It was me.

More precisely, it was the clone that had been sitting in the tube as I and Trojan embraced one another. I could tell due to the bandages the clone was barely wrapped in, as well as the distinct lack of purple eye shadow. The female copy smiled as it twirled around in front of Trojan.

"Let us dance!"

I watched as the clone rolled into a ball, knocking Trojan into the air before teleport kicking him, hitting him with a thrown sai, and jumping on him. While I desperately wanted to intervene, I knew that doing so would cause Trojan to forfeit the battle. Thus, I watched as he dealt with my copy.

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

As this new Mileena attacked me, I found myself struggling to attack her, or even defend myself from her blows. It could've been many things: the lack of clothing, my love for her, or just the sheer urge to not hit something I loved, but I suppose the real reason was that I did not want to hit Mileena in any way, shape, or form. Even though this was a clone hell-bent on killing me, it still bore true image of my babe Mileena, and thus, I couldn't bring myself to hurt her.

As the clone prepared to stab me in th heart with her own sais, I heard Tanya screaming and crying as she was chained.

"No, He is mine, you filthy emasculating wench! I WANT HIM! HE IS NOT YOURS, AND HE NEVER WILL BE!"

My Mileena shut the imprisoned woman up with a slap to the face, but it distracted the clone enough for me to gather up my courage. With one swift blow, I plunged my wrist blade deep into the heart of the mirror image of my soon-to-be-girlfriend, watching her eyes die down as the life was wrenched out of her. As the body of the nearly-naked woman went limp, I stood up, extricating my bloody blade from her chest before pointing at the Emperor himself.

"Enough of this! Shao Kahn, face me in Mortal Kombat!"

The Emperor stood up, Poinding his fist on the armrest of his throne bride pointing at me. "You are nothing!"

With a massive leap across the stadium, Shao Kahn came directly in front of me before summoning his hammer and attempting to smash me with it as though he was swinging a baseball bat. I backed up, avoiding the blow only to be hit by a shoulder block. Kahn threw his hammer at me, which I dodged before swinging with a series of kicks and punches to the Outworld ruler, including a particularly nasty one to his balls. The warlord cried out in pain as I activated the buzzsaw, slashing him several times across the chest and neck, but still he refused to go down. I fired my taser barb at him, but it did nothing to the wounded Emperor as he continued trying to hit me with his hammer before instead throwing a glowing green lance at me. The large weapon slid through my armor and perforated my shoulder, causing me to cry out in immense agony as the weapon disappeared. Blood poured from the hole sat an alarming rate, and though the morphine helped stop me rom going into shock and collapsing from the pain, the loss of blood was something I couldn't overcome that easily.

Beginning to slow down, I started to suffer blurry vision as pint after pint of blood flowed from my wound. Still, though, the adrenaline and want for Mileena overcame the pain as I dashed forward, the buzzsaw spinning at high speed as I slammed it into Shao Kahn's chest.

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

I cringed as my playmate tore into my father's chest. Backing up, he began to panic as light emanated from his critically injured body, before he froze up and shattered into hundreds of pieces of small stone fragments. As the bloodied Trojan loosely raised his hand in final victory, I rushed to him just as another door opened and... Shao Kahn came out?

My father appeared surprisingly intact considering that I had just seen him die, a smirk on his face as he stared at Trojan.

"You have finally proven yourself worthy of of gaining an opportunity to become my daughter's partner. Mileena, do you..."

Before he even finished, I yelled "YES!" as I tore my veil off, ravenously kissing my bleeding boyfriend as I squeezed him with a tight hug. With my arms holding Trojan up, I took him back with me to my room, where he and I would tend to his wounds and... consummate our relationship...


	15. Ascension

**MARKUS X'S POV**

As Mileena and I made our way to her room, we were just about to enter the door and hit the hay when Li Mei interrupted.

"I apologize for the intrusion, but Mileena is needed by her father. Something about a relationship gift..."

Frowning, I entered the room as my girlfriend turned to follow the servant girl to the throne room. Until she came back, I guess I needed to set the mood...

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

I bowed before my father as he slowly circled me, looking my new attire over. "Excellent..."

My father stopped before looking me directly in the eye.

"My gift for you is neither weapons, nor land, nor any physical property at all. My gift to you is something that will be useful to you for the duration of your relationship, and past it once Trojan dies of old age."

Closing his eyes, my Emperor held an arm out towards my face as green energy flew from his palm, swirling around my veiled face. This went on for several minutes before he stopped, his eyes opening.

"Feel your face."

Doing as I was told, I removed my veil and was shocked to discover that my face was no longer a mass of needle-like teeth. My cheeks were firm yet gaunt, giving me what appeared to be a very elegant appearance, similar to that of Sindel, my 'mother,' but distinctly different. My nose too, which Trojan had already pointed out when we first met, appeared to be more normal, average-sized and without a trace of Tarkatan features.

"My gift to you is the "normal" human appearance you have craved since first viewing yourself in a mirror. However, do not think I have fully eliminated your flesh-eating abilities..."

Noticing my eyes still appeared yellow, a distinct similarity from before, I found my mouth opening not only the way a normal human's would, but the way my mouth did before as well. It almost seamlessly switched between my typical mouth I had been born with, and this new, more human mouth of mine.

"Thank you dearly, father!"

I bowed yet again before returning to my room, re-veiling myself as I walked down the halls. Trojan would certainly be surprised by my new lips...

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

How I had managed to turn into such an elegant man, I didn't know. All I did know, however, was that the room had been set up for my girlfriend's return.

Candles provided a soothing natural light to the room, while open bottles of scented oils and a fire-heated batch of potpourri made the entire room feel fragrant, like a forest of sweet flowers. I had laid a trail of petals that led to the bed from the doorway, and had placed her teddy bear(almost entirely cleaned from its misadventure in the subway) on the pillow, resting on one of the gloves from my armor.

Hearing Mileena open the door, I began to play some soft, sexy music on my iPhone as she stepped closer to the bed. Lying down on it, I removed her veil to reveal the razor-like teeth of hers as I smiled at her, looking forward to what was to come.

And then, she began to change.

i don't really know how to describe what happened that well... It was as though her skin stretched over her teeth with a faint purplish glow. Her face now looked fully human, something I was highly surprised and intrigued by as she came even closer to me. Furthermore, she still had yellow eyes, though from what I could tell, her eyes merely appeared human with yellow irises, making her look like(in my opinion) a sexy Sith lady from Star Wars.

As she began to undress, removing the sleeved top and minimalist bottoms, I merely watched, gazing upon the well-muscled and statue-esque Mileena's body. I myself merely had underwear to remove as the two of us curled together in bed, preparing to enjoy the fruit of being a couple.

"I love you."

She turned and looked at me. "I love you too, Trojan."

Wrapping an arm around her waist, I chose to correct her. "Trojan's just my code name, babe. My real name is Markus. Markus X."

Not caring in the slightest, Mileena rolled on top of me, holding me down as the two of us prepared to do the deed...

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed from my night with Trojan. It had been a very wild night, and I was looking forward to a great many more to come. Slinking out of bed as I went to get on my clothes, I was interrupted by Li Mei, the blasted servant girl once again barging in, only to find me without a single stitch of clothing on.

"Well... I expected I would find you in this situation, Mileena, but I am quite disappointed that I did not get to barge in on what went on last night."

With my teeth still visible, I turned away from her and began to get dressed. "What do you want, Li Mei?"

She smirked at me as I finished putting on my outfit before veiling my face. "I expected a more royal command from the new ruler of Outworld, but then again, I guess I..."

Dropping my veil, my mouth visibly returned to that of my human appearance. "What did you say?"

While Li Mei was shocked at how my mouth shifted, the servant girl quickly recomposed herself. "Your father's invasion of Earthrealm was thwarted by Raiden and the Elder Gods. He was killed by them, though the majority of the Earthrealm heroes are dead. I believe that by the next single-tournament Mortal Kombat, we will be able to solidly crush them... Empress."

A smile formed on my finally human face. While I had always tried to serve my father well in order to gain his favor, it was only now that my work hunting down traitors to the Emperor was paying off. Motioning for Li Mei to leave, as I would be coming to the throne room shortly, I roused Markus from his slumber.

"Huh? What?" He bolted up, looking back and forth as the adrenaline in his body from last night finally subsided. "Oh, it's just you... What's up?"

Deciding to keep my ascension a secret to him for the moment, I merely stepped towards the door. "We are wanted in the throne room."

"Great... What did I do this time to garner Shao Kahn's wrath? Yeah I slept with you, but it's not like I raped you or was raped by you..." he shivered at that last thought as he got out of bed, moving to get his white kimono and gloves on as I stepped towards the door. I fully intended to beat him to the throne room, just so I could increase the shock of this revelation...

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

Well, I suppose I had to get up now... Once you wake me up, I can't go back to sleep. As my girlfriend headed to the throne room, I slipped on a pair of what appeared to be wooden flip-flops before heading to meet her.

As I reached the doors, the wooden thong sandals chose to make their presence known, and as a result, I ended up flying into the door face-first, winding up on the floor in the throne room. Getting up, I took the annoying shoes off my feet and flung them at the stone wall, cracking them in half as they hit the rock. "Good riddance, you blasted flip-flops!" Turning and looking back towards the throne, I saw Mileena.

Sitting on it.

With the other Outworlders surrounding her, bowing.

Standing there, my jaw dropped as low as it could possibly be, I quickly shattered the mood with my words. "What the... What's Mileena doing on the throne? Shao Kahn retiring or something?"

The four-armed woman turned to me, pointing with both of her right arms. "How dare you show such disrespect to the new Empress!"

Before my girlfriend could do anything to stop the she-beast, she had jumped up, teleported to directly above me, and attempted to stomp on me. I quickly countered by jumping up, my fist contacting with her gut as a crack was heard from the woman's ribs. Backing up, I prepared to continue the fight, but my girlfriend(and evidently the new ruler of Outworld) threw a sai in the woman's direction, flying over her shoulder and skimming the top of it.

"That is quite enough! Sheeva, the only one that I do not rule in this realm is standing before you, and yet you dare to attack him?"

Sheeva turned and bowed to the Empress. "I am sorry, mistress. I had no clue he was held in such particular regard by yourself."

Still staring in awe at my Mileena, seated on the throne of Outworld, a realization came to my mind.

_"Okay, if this means that I'm dating 'Empress' Mileena, I guess my social status here in Outworld just exploded. Besides, maybe Mileena's going to give me an opportunity to put my tech skills to work..."_

Out loud, I blurted out seemingly incomprehensible words before rushing towards Mileena and giving her a hug. "This is the happiest day of my entire life! I have a wonderful girlfriend, a place of status in Outworld, and so many opportunities to take advantage of! There's absolutely nothing that could ruin this moment for me!"_  
_

Unfortunately, I was incorrect about the latter part of my comment, as a heavy voice boomed from seemingly nowhere.

"NO!"


	16. Vengeance Will Be Mine!

**MARKUS X'S POV**

With a flash of bright light blinding me due to my visor not being tinted, I staggered back, raising my arm to shield me from the powerful glow. When the light receded, I lowered my arm to reveal an unusual sight.

A man stood before us, wearing what resembled a white karate outfit and a blue vest, complete with gilded shoulder plates and gleaming white eyes. However, the most bizarre part of his attire was his bamboo hat. I sincerely struggled to not laugh at how ridiculous he looked as the man turned, looking at me.

"You! You do not belong here!"

His voice was booming, something I didn't expect from someone who looked so ridiculous.

"What the heck are you going on about, dude?"

I crossed my arms at the weird man as he looked at me, a clearly frustrated look on his face.

"My visions... My recollections. You were in none of them!"

Before I could respond, Mileena interrupted.

"And what dare gives you the right to intrude into my realm, Raiden? Do not think that you have the right to enter my domain merely because my boyfriend is from Earthrealm, thunder god.'

Raiden?

"So let me get this straight... You're Raiden?" The man nodded, with a now-emotionless face. "Where were you when I needed you back in Earthrealm? I didn't see you saving me back when Mileena and I first met and she beat the heck out of me..."

With a look that appeared indifferent to my plight, the so-called 'thunder god' responded. "I had more critical things to focus on, such as the protection of Earthrealm's chosen warriors and the defeat of Shao Kahn. With him gone, Earthrealm is safe once more."

I sarcastically nodded. "Yeah, of course it is... Not like we still have terrorist organizations killing people, imbecilic nutjobs as heads of state, and mental cases running around on the streets. No siree..."

Ignoring me, Raiden pointed a finger as he continued. "You will come with me back to Earthrealm. With you here, the remaining future victories that have been preordained for Earthrealm may not occur."

"And we are supposed to believe that your mad visions mean anything, protector of Earthrealm? You were responsible for the deaths of almost all of the Earthrealm warriors." Mileena did not seem impressed with Raiden's reasoning, and neither did I.

Growing more agitated at myself and my girlfriend, the 'thunder god' had a quick eye change to red before they returned to their original color. "If you refuse to come with me willingly, Markus, I will have no choice but to return you to Earthrealm by force." Stepping into a fighting stance, the crazed being began to radiate lightning, still a suicidal move considering those who surrounded him.

"I've told you before, and I'll tell you again, since you don't get the picture anymore, 'thunder god.' I am perfectly happy here, without your intervention. I have a good life, good girlfriend, and a good existence, and I will rot in the darkest depths of hell before I ever give up what I quite literally have fought to gain!"

Saying nothing, a ball of electricity formed in Raiden's hands. As the other Outworld warriors rushed to attack him, he threw the sphere of energy into the air. When it hit the ceiling of the throne room, the globe of electrical energy shattered, sending lightning bolts melting at every single kombatant, including myself and Mileena. Wanting to protect her from harm, I lept in front of the lightning meant for her... And immediately felt myself go unconscious.

* * *

**MILEENA'S POV**

I watched Raiden's attack on my warriors as the magic of my throne rose up to defend me from any attacks. Unknowing that I had protection, though, Markus jumped in front of a bolt that was aimed straight towards me. With a flash of energy, he fell limply to the ground, occasionally spasming from the remaining energy in his body.

Raiden had killed my boyfriend. In my own domain, no less! How dare he do such a thing! God or not, he would suffer for his crime.

Standing from my throne, I summoned my sais to my hands, their purple essence sliding out from underneath my sleeves as I lept towards the thunder god. His soul would be mine.

Dodging a strike from his summoned lightning staff, I stabbed a sai into his chest, which he pulled out and threw away. With a quick combination of moves, I rolled under him, teleport kicked him from both sides, and lept on him, tearing off my veil as my mouth shifted to that of my Tarkatan side, munching on the flesh of Raiden's neck and shoulder as I stabbed him several more times before getting off.

As I did so, Raiden grabbed my arm and shocked me before teleporting behind me and hitting me in the spine, then hotels porting back and hitting me in the skull with a chop. Both times I heard painful cracks as my bones gave a bit under the stress. With myself having suffered some critical interior wounds, I fell to the ground, struggling to get up. I would not let him take my Teddy!

As I tried to take a step towards Raiden, already tugging my boyfriend towards the portal to Earthrealm, he stopped and fired a ball of electricity at me, knocking my body back down to the ground. With myself incapacitated, I could only watch as the most important thing in my life was stolen by the 'protector of Earthrealm.'

* * *

**MARKUS X'S POV**

I awoke to a familiar sight: my workshop, back home... Did I dream this entire world up?

Evidently not, as the remains of Cyrax and Sektor's weapons were still on my arms, underneath a burned white kimono. I facepalmed, having left my armored suit back in Mileena's room.

Turning towards my other prototypes which I had abandoned, I shed my kimono and put on a long-sleeved shirt that had been impregnated with nanites to increase the durability and strength of it. As I did so, another shock was heard as Raiden reappeared.

Still infuriated at the 'protector of Earthrealm' having taken me away from the only thing that had made me happy long-term in my entire life, I ran towards him, but stopped as he threw a ball of lightning at my feet. "How dare you! And you have the audacity to call yourself a god? I call you pathetic!"

He turned away from me. "It is for your own good that you remain here in Earthrealm. I need new warriors to defend our realm from the invasion of Shinnok, considering the deaths of the warriors predestined to stop him."

I crossed my arms at this clearly imbecilic being. "Uh, hello? Is there a brain inside that head? In case you forgot, my girlfriend pretty much runs Outworld now that Shao Kahn's gone. Did you ever think that maybe I'd be able to have their support if any so-called 'invasions' occur? I am the only one Mileena listens to in a loving manner, anyways..."

"Outworld will merely return to their treacherous state. If Quan Chi succeeds where I saw him succeed in my visions, no amount of favor with Mileena will save you and any friends you have in Earthrealm from utter annihilation!"

Looking over, I spotted one of my spare pistols, a slightly rusted Colt .45. Quickly grabbing it, I fired a shot through the top of Raiden's hat before aiming it at his head.

"Stay away from me. Stay away from my stuff, my land, and my friends. And most importantly, stay away from Mileena! If I ever, and I mean EVER, see you again after today, I swear to God that I will blast your head off your body, chop your remains up, and feed them to the vultures! I don't want to run into you for the rest of my now-miserable existence! DO YOU HEAR ME!?"

Without a trace of emotion, Raiden nodded as the bullet hole in his hat disappeared, he himself vanishing in a small torrent of lightning. Firmly putting the gun down on the table, I sat down on the floor, motionless for a few minutes before I did something I regret to this day.

I cried.

Pulling my knees to my face, tears began to run down my cheeks as I bemoaned my very existence. I had finally found my place in existence, only to have it ripped away from my grasp. I had so many things I had never expected before: a girlfriend, fame and glory, someone who cared about me that wasn't a direct family member... and then Raiden stole it. The malicious entity intentionally ruined my own happiness just to satisfy some pathetic portion of his own agenda. If I ever saw him again, I would swear that the resulting battle would leave him dead. Or worse, me dead. Life sincerely didn't feel like it was worth living anymore, and I reached for the gun again, considering whether or not I should end it all and be done with this foolishness.

Fortunately, my choice was made for me, as I heard someone outside. Stepping into my workshop was a man a good six and a half feet tall, wearing a sweaty karate outfit with a black belt on it. Also around his waist was a belt that had the scabbard for a katana on it, the blade itself currently held in his hand. It was Parsek...

"I was coming over when I heard a loud noise coming from the garage. I stopped and came in here, only to find you and your old Colt. What's wrong, man? You can tell me."

Wiping the tears from my eyes, my body suddenly assumed a rigid composure as I slid the gun across the smooth concrete floor, a small dent in the ground causing it to slide up onto a bottom shelf. "Nothing. I do however need some help with my next piece of technology..."

"Well, what are you working on now, Markus?"

I smiled, a someone devious grin on my face as a plan to defy Raiden formulated inside my head. "Oh, nothing much... Tell me, how much do you know about making rifts in space-time?"

His face turned to that of utter shock as he saw my facial expression. "You're kidding... You want to make a..."

"That's right. We're going to construct ourselves a portal."

* * *

**Thanks for reading my first fic on here! Was going to complete it on Christmas, but I came down with an ear infection and some pretty bad allergies, so sadly I couldn't do it. Really appreciate your feedback, and I'm looking forward to making more fanfics as 2013 comes our way.**


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